Good idea, but don’t be surprised when threatened with 100% tariffs. Canada got that threat (again? honestly lost track) just yesterday.

Italy should do it as well.

Militia? No, the government! ICE is an official government agency.

The Dutch absolutely should NOT follow suit. You guys stole our (Romanian) golden helmet when we sent it to a museum in the Netherlands[1] because you don't have any armed guards at museums.

Maybe send your gold to a country that actually protects priceless things, like the UK.

[1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/art-thieves-blew-u...

That's going to take a lot of Minis!

The Remmos and al-Zeins are probably thinking about that already, but as long as the Sparkasse isn't in charge of the transfer I'd say such a heist will be too difficult for the usual suspects.

If a plan was made to repatriate it, chances are this will happens slowly over years, possibly decades. A lot of it might not even be "moved", but rather "swapped" for gold physically in the EU by means of various vehicles: such as selling gold at a slight loss in the US, and buying gold in the EU. Doing so might be cheaper than arranging for physical transport of large quantities.

When large quantities of gold are actually transported "at once", it usually happens in secret on warships. Maybe military planes would be used nowadays? Who knows. Good luck anyhow.

Maybe this time it would succeed since McClane has dementia.

Aren't you confusing two things? When Nixon suspended Bretton Woods, he wasn't refusing to repatriate gold, he was reneging on the promise that dollars could be converted into gold (one of the reasons being that it no longer had enough physical gold to redeem).

So countries like France held dollars and could no longer get them converted to gold. From my reading, before 1971, all the requests to convert dollars by France, Switzerland, and the UK were all honoured, contributing to the crisis. I don't believe anyone were refused conversion until 1971. And even then, everyone still had their dollars. All they lost was the ability to redeem for gold according to the fixed Bretton Woods price. Dollars could still be used to buy gold at market value.

But this article is talking about repatriating gold owned by other governments but physically held in vaults by the US. A bunch of countries (including Germany) have already repatriated vast amount that were housed by the US, and those requests have never been refused. The Federal Reserve is said to even keeps the bars owned by other countries physically separate, rather than commingled.

That would be more or less equivalent to defaulting on government bonds, in the sense that the latter are only backed by the buyers trust that the US will pay them back.

The result would be catastrophic for the US: worst case would be a domino cash in of American debt.

> Why do they think the US will give it to them?

Perhaps they think asking is the best way to find out.

> why do they think the US will give it to them?

Because gold repatriation isn't something that special or unthinkable. It happened multiple times already.

Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Germany have asked a significant portion of their gold back. The US gave them and the world kept working as before. The amount of doom posting in this thread is mildly amusing though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_repatriation#Germany

Think they'll have to - you can only switch to a "trust me bro" system once.

this. Especially USA may use all those gold to build a Gold White House.

When did that happen? Are you talking about Breton Woods? Because if that’s the case, you got it completely wrong.

The biggest customer of Canadian Mint gold bullion are US investors in New York, as Wall Street knows its refinement is always very pure and traceable. Note this mint saw an $8.3B uptick in sales in 2025 alone due to international political antics.

"The prohibition on gold ownership in the US was relaxed in 1964, and finally rescinded in 1977 when Gerald Ford signed proclamation Pub.L. 93-373."

However, during severe economic recession the US government has Nationalized private gold holdings >1oz in the past. Something like a 35% drop in markets due to a theoretical Magnificent 7 "AI" bubble correction does pose a nonzero risk.

Keep some Popcorn ready, as the price of Gold going any higher is getting weird. =3

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Obviously not.

At the moment you can't really trust the US with anything.

> depending on the US to defend them was a poisonous mistake, even if a very seductive one.

It was a decision that was necessary to not loose the second world war to Germany and/or the Sovietunion. Until 30 years ago separating from the US would have meant allowing the Sovietunion to expand to the Atlantic. Separating from the US has been an open discussion for the last 30 years, but it was always felt to be a security risk and the US has actively used its soft power to remain the status quo.

Trump likes to frame is as if Europe said: "Please, USA, protect us, and we will just parasite on you and abuse our relationship to our advantage". Whereas in fact the whole story is the other way round. For example there were limits on the size of German army not that long time ago. And the USA did everything so that its interests are well represented n Europe. Now that Trump plays his "We don't need anyone" theme, the former allies of the USA are forming their own alliances, reduce spending in the USA and no longer feel obliged to turn a blind eye on things that were bothering them for decades.

The only reason why other countries sent their soldiers to stupid wars in Afghanistan and Irak that made no sense then and make no sense now was because they were honoring their commitments and saying OK, we send people to die but if the worst come and Russia attacks us, The USA will do their part. Now Trump openly says all this was for nothing. All trust in the USA is gone as nobody knows what Trump does when he wakes up next day. So we quietly work on making the best of the current situation.

It's kinda weird how Dalio has been predicting a fall for a while now.

Greenland thing and taking Russia side were beginning of the end. Lying about America never getting help was making the end loud and clear.

This is just Germans dealing with end being unavoidable.

Just not talking about it and doing it slowly seems to work? E.g. one of the Dutch pension funds has pulled 1/3rd of their investment of US bonds (10/30 billion) since early 2025. They won't talk about, you'll only see it in their public records/reports. They re-invested the money in Dutch and German bonds.

It would definitely be fun to watch Germany try to lift that sword.

Rammstein?

I agree that they will never get the gold back, but is it really more likely that the US hands over that sum in cash?

Gold price is high, so why not just sell it?

Meanwhile Germany could silently buy gold at home and let the market handle where it comes from.

Germans. We (also European) thankfully already got our gold back.

With that idiot a bullshit pretext might have done the trick.

"We just want to have it for a bit to polish it to ensure it is shiny. It's a requirement of German law under Saftsack gesetz 35.6"

Idk man, these things are hilarious, I for one enjoy seeing Trump having toddlers tier meltdown on video every now and then. That's why I keep watching his live speeches, that and in the hope his body finally gives up in glorious 4k 60 fps

The more he pushes us away with his deranged tantrums the more independence we are forced to build, it's a win-win really

Why do people continue attributing 4D chess to Trump? He is an egomaniac and just wants to be one of the few presidents that added land to the US (similar to being one of the few presidents who won the Nobel Peace Prize). He has said as much as it being 'psychological' to him.

So, he made the threats. Stocks start going down, bond yields start going up. Perhaps surprising to him there is a unified reaction from EU countries, the trade bazooka is on the table. More rational actors in his entourage/broligachy start to get worried, advising him to find a landing site. Along comes Mark Rutte who offers him a landing site that sounds great, but does not improve much over his starting position, but actually made it worse (there will be non-US NATO arctic troops on Greenland, not just 4 dog sleds or whatever he is always rambling about).

The longer-term damage for the US is much bigger. Tech sovereignty just moved to the top of the EU agendas and companies and government will move away from US tech, to a loss of hundreds of billions of income in the longer term.

Some 4D chess move...

The only thing he accomplished was making america look like a fool again.

> With Greenland, Trump just demonstrated how this works: maximum escalation (tariff threats against a NATO partner), then “backing down” in exchange for concessions (“total and permanent access”). The result is a structural shift - Europe becomes more dependent on US decisions in the Arctic, not less.

What concessions? Can you name one thing that Trump got that the US did not have before?

If these actually are attempts at some sort of “the art of the deal” manipulation, they are failing catastrophically. He is achieving nothing while destroying the soft power the US benefited from since WW2.

> The second-order effect: coercive bargaining within the Western alliance becomes normalized

What? What does that even mean? Do you realize how hand-wavey this sounds? With this kind of vague ex-post rationalization totally blind to any negative consequences of the supposed “bargaining”, you could sanewash literally any action. Trump shoots the Prime Minister of Norway on live TV? He just wanted to promote better security of the Western leaders.

Someone else in this thread talks about the supposed lack of awareness of “the art of the deal” meme. No, I am aware of the “4D chess” theory to explain Trump’s behavior. I just don’t think it matches the observation. I think the “malignant narcissist with emotional maturity of an 8-year-old” works much better.

BTW, I like how Emily Maitlis talks about Trump’s “achievements” in Davos - it brings a bit of much-needed levity to the situation: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/34yP2X-nZCk

>What we just saw at Davos with Greenland reveals the actual pattern: the theatrics are the tool, not the objective. The erratic behavior generates uncertainty, which then gets converted into bargaining leverage.

He said this in his book The Art of the Deal, released in 1987. It’s been his playbook for all political campaigning and both terms of his presidency. It’s a meme to point this out in certain right leaning circles.

I was frustrated by the lack of awareness about this for awhile. I still am but I understand now that the media is also playing their part and doing their role. It’s absolutely justified - these ridiculous claims and arguments generate clicks, attention, revenue.

It’s something that should be kept in mind by the average voter though, and in social media discussion. Everyone wants you to be emotionally invested. Trump wants you to commit so he can pump fake tou, and the media gets solid quarterly numbers