Today, we're going to figure out what the UK thinks about Venezuela's president. Is it Nicolas Maduro or Juan Guaido?
There's a question in Venezuela as to who the head of the government is. The United Kingdom officially thinks that it's Juan Guaido. They've said that Maduro has suppressed the local populous and suppressed voters and therefore they issued an official statement saying that Maduro was not the president, Guaido was, even though Maduro was in control, at least allegedly in control of the government. So why is this a big deal? Well, there's $2 billion sitting in the Bank of England and Brazil? At least the putative government under Maduro has sued to get that money and the UK has said, originally the high court said, "Well, that's not your money. That belongs to the head of government Guaido." But what's interesting is an English court of appeal overturned that ruling. They didn't decide that Maduro was the true head of government but they recertified it back to the high court to find out from the high court, one while the UK recognizes Mr. Guaido as president for all purposes and therefore does not recognize Mr. Maduro, the UK has to say that in a more definitive answer, and two, they have to recognize Mr. Guaido is entitled to be the president of Venezuela and thus entitled to exercise all the power. But they also have to recognize Mr. Maduro, who does in fact exercise some or all of the powers of the president of Venezuela. For now that $2 billion is going to stay in England, along with another $120 million that is in Deutsche Bank.
