I thought this was interesting from the original post (not that I care one way or the other - it’s a sovereign country and they can do what they want):

“Despite claims that EHAS is detouring tourist from visiting the country, statistics show that this is far from the truth. In the high season of 2021-2022, Sint Maarten was at approximately 120% of its 2019 pre-COVID arrival numbers and to date we are at 90% of the 2019 arrivals.”