The Venezuelan government and the country’s opposition are close to reaching an agreement to transfer the central bank’s gold reserves, worth about $4bn, from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Under the terms of the deal being discussed, the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez would gain legal control over the gold but would not be allowed to immediately sell the holdings, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Instead, the gold could potentially be used as collateral for borrowing by the government to fund spending, including for reconstruction from June’s devastating double earthquake, three of the people said.
The potential gold agreement is one of the first concrete results from a US-backed negotiation process between the interim government and the opposition.
If the deal is finalised, it would bring to an end a seven-year-long dispute over the gold that began in 2019, when the US, UK and some other governments recognised opposition politician Juan Guaidó, then head of the National Assembly, as the country’s legitimate president.
Since then, the opposition has claimed control over the bullion bars that the Venezuelan central bank had stored in the vaults at the Bank of England. The legal dispute at one stage reached the UK Supreme Court.
That gold has been held hostage by england for years and years, it has been withheld so long that it was promised to Juan Guido and he hasn't even been the opposition leader for several years.
The gold is supposed to be doled out to Venezuela according to their new agreement, which would obviously be better than it being completely withheld, right? Even if the US is stealing some of it, if they are also passing some of it to Venezuela, Venezuela is getting access to objectively more resources than they had before, and PSUV and Delcy have all been clear from the jump that their money is going to the collectivos to build the commune movement and build a self sufficient grassroots movement. This all a ploy at "normalization" so they can get more money to invest in their movement, otherwise they are under total blockade and will not have any way to push back against that. The US is stealing from them, why blame the victim of theft for handing their wallet over instead of trying to resist and getting killed in the process.