Wouldn’t that necessarily mean that if the US keeps making enemies of allies, then the premium required for these countries to give US money would be higher? Sure, I’ll lend you some, but I don’t trust you that much, you’ll have to pay me more.

What you point out here is a major weakness in the typical US citizen's understanding of where US wealth and power comes from.

The US prints two kinds of dollars, the regular kind, then the T-bills.

T-bills get exchanged like dollars, investors/governments buy them because they are thought to be as stable as dollars, but also bear a bit of yield. The US benefits by printing T-bills over dollars because merely by changing the current interest rate, they change the dollar supply. Increasing interest rates lower the value of T-bills, decreasing the supply of dollars (as Silicon Valkey Bank found out...). This allows the US currency to remain very stable.

Referring to the $40T of T-bills merely as "debt" is quite deceptive. It's the global currency. You need enough currency out there to represent the actual amount of wealth, otherwise the values of dollars increases, and deflation is the only thing worse than inflation.

The US' $2T budget deficit is basically the rest of the world paying the US for the privilege of using US currency. The US is printing money, and getting the benefits of spending, because the rest of the world needs dollars to transact. They send us goods, we send them printed dollars. And then we get a president who calls this situation bad, because he doesn't understand what a "trade deficit" is. Utter insanity to have such a position and then just throw it all away.

The US isn’t taking money from other countries - you clearly don’t understand the scam!

We give money to Israel, Ukraine, and everyone else - we print and print and print and a few people close to the action take some off the top.

That’s it. Maybe some rich kids get their university debt wiped clean (not community college though).

The US and even local governments within have become corrupted to the core - they are like ATMs and havens of various types for the emerging international wealth class.

That class may very well want to promote your idea since the best seat at the table right now is China.

Now everyone wants to be owed by the US à la China, it’s been great for international business. Mexico is the heir to that throne more than Europe - which doesn’t produce anything the world wants.

It’s not other people’s money they just print it out of thin air and say we have a deeper deficit.

Is it "level headed" to ignore the concerns of somebody pulling their gold out, even if they are a small country?

Your figures do point out that the Netherlands's amount of gold is small, but it is not level headed to think that they are somehow alone or unrepresentative of far more countries with far more gold.

Does this mean a net of 13% of foreign gold has been removed from the U.S. since 2006?

July 2021 7,794 5,742 July 2026 7,812 5,755

Gold prices have exploded between these two dates. Am I missing something?

Bruh, this is not about the amount of gold involved.

The standards of purity have changed over time, and most of the US gold dates from before the 1930s; and so a lot of US-domiciled gold have different purities that don't follow the current international standard. The purity requirement has been going up over time. A lot of US gold is 90% gold and 10% copper, but gold traded on the international market needs to be at least 99.5% pure. Here [1] is a good breakdown.

[1] https://www.bficapital.com/blog/what-is-inside-fort-knox

You're reading way to much into this.

Physical gold bars are transferred via plane between London and New York every day. The gold flies in the cargo holds of regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights. The quantity transferred depends on demand, and could be several metric tons daily.

This is nothing unusual. Dubai is another major gold transfer hub, and it operates via the same mechanism.

Regarding the article highlighting differing international standards for gold, London uses standard 400-ounce bars, while the US uses 100-ounce or 1kg bars. Often, the bars need to be remelted (elsewhere, typically in Switzerland) before they can be added to the vaults.

Again, nothing unusual.

Most of this is googleable but there are thousands of traders that make sure the gold price is the same globally so nobody had to “move” their gold in the reverse for this trade to work.

The difference between London and the US is that the bars are of different size (12.5 vs 1kg).

> Interestingly, 59 tonnes of gold was sold in USA and bought in London. So that means perhaps "Somebody" transferred 59 tonnes of their gold holdings to the USA.. who was that?

That 59T could have been someone that decided to starting owning gold for the very first time, so 'net-new' holding rather than a 'transfer'. The 59T could have also been multiple parties and not an individual "somebody": we only know that it was 59T from the sell side (NL).

USA & Canada

I know the above was in the article, but please never mention the US and Canada in the same breath. Please.

That & symbol just irritates.

From a Canadian's perspective, it's like mentioning a sophisticated, decent human being, and a slimy smarmy used car salesman, in the same breath.

Please.

Their goal isn't only safe storage, it's also being able to sell when needed.

You can't quickly trade with the gold that's in their own safe storage facility in Zeist, because you would need to physically transport it. The reserve at the Bank of England is put there because there is a large market for gold trading there. So you can use the gold immediately to influence the markets.

Putting it in a safe place in another European country wouldn't have added value over storage in Zeist.

London has an old school gold exchange. Pretty much you can buy and sell by moving a part between vaults (at least that's how I understood it to work in the past). Now I expect it to be just a spreadsheet but who knows.

England is a European country. Just not EU.

England is a country in Europe.

I’m surprised why they don’t just move it back to their own country and put it in a safe in Netherland.

England is definitely a European country. I'm tired of people constantly making this political abuse of language of conflating "the EU" with "Europe".

(And yes, saying "America" for "US of A" annoys me too. First step towards losing an imperialist state of mind is letting people from Canada and Brazil be in America).

The narrative is that the continent is going to be overrun by Russia (at the rate of mile per year like in Ukraine). So the elites think they need the gold in London to pay for their exile government luxury.

The Dutch transfer out of Canada is minimal and pretty much a token amount. Most gold has been transfered out of the USA.

As for why, the American people elected Donald Trump for a second time and the recent trade wars have helped spread the notion that maybe the USA cannot be trusted by its supposed allies as much as it once could be.

Gold-pressed latinum, you say?

That only gets discovered when all of it is pulled

If there is dodgy stuff happening in the US it makes sense to keep the grift going as long as possible

That shipping container could not be easily lifted, right? The bottom would simply rip off under so much weight.

Besides the reasons listed by the others, this also a matter of relationships as there a deep ties between these nations and the Netherlands. Without the Dutch financing the Americans, America would not have been able to become independent from the English. The Dutch were also the first country on earth to acknowledge America's independence [1][2], costing them a war with the pissed England [3].

There are a lot of Dutch people living in Canada.[4]

  _____

2. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Salute>

3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Anglo-Dutch_War>

4. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Canadians>

It's mostly historical and a combination of security from the WW2 and Cold War eras as well as how the gold standard worked before Bretton Woods.

Most countries held gold reserves as their currencies were backed by it. When money needed to move because of trade, the ratios of currencies backed by gold would shift as money got converted to other currencies. However, constantly moving physical gold back and forth with the ebs and flows of trade was impractical, so ownership of gold in central bank vaults usually just had its legal ownership marked on ledgers. Physical gold moving was more part of reconciliation. This description is an oversimplification as in practice, countries didn't always play by the rules of the gold standard (revaluations, going on and off the standard, etc), but you get the general idea.

This mostly ended as Bretton woods came into effect and the new system was basing the US dollars on gold, then other countries held direct US dollars and traded that instead. Countries could then convert those US dollars into gold. This ended when Nixon closed the gold window when he refused to raise interest rates as there started to be a run on gold as countries rushed to convert. The backdrop was that high spending on the Vietnam was and new social programs was driving inflation, but Nixon knew that would cause an economic slowdown he wasn't willing to do. Jimmy Carter then took a lot of the political flack for allowing the central bank to raise rates to kill it. This is why central bank independence is so important.

During times of geopolitical risk, countries would physically move their gold to be held in trust in friendly and/or rule of law countries. The USA was seen as this between ~1914-now.

Makes it harder to steal.

Don't forget that the European continent has had wars almost non-stop for centuries. It is a good strategy to place your gold in a location that has not seen much action in the past 250 years.

Makes trade easier than shifting currency. It’s also more stable and liquid if you need to make things happen in an emergency.

> I'm curious the reason why it was ever held in the US and Canada

Random Educated Guess; Probably part of some show of mutual trust to cement a treaty or other agreement, made way back when allied governments could mostly trust one another to hold to such agreements somewhat reliably?

I would assume WWII and the Cold War?

(another guess) to convert to dollars, the gold would need to be delivered to the custody of the US Fed, which is easiest when the bars are physically in the Fed's vault. in a low-trust situation, you have all the gold in your own country, but then its so much leas liquid bc you need to physically deliver it to trading partners, or they must trust your accounting of their share in your vault.

Could be due to the fact that before 1970s the currency was backed by Gold and they had it in US to easily convert it to USD if needed

Mate look up New Amsterdam

It was originally payments owed to Dutch interests in America being converted to gold and stored locally on their behalf, as opposed to having to be transported across the Atlantic back to the Netherlands.

Then later the Dutch moved a lot more of their gold over there before/during WWII in order to keep it out of reach of the Nazis.

Um, the actual violent history of Europe? Plenty of governments ended up in exile during the last 250 years, and it is better if your gold isn't suddenly in hands of someone like Goering or Stalin.

Is this true? Any sources? Been buying a lot of gold over the past year or so.

While there have been calls from economists to consider such a move for months [1], there is currently no need to wonder. The German fed (Bundesbank) has already commented that they believe the US to remain a trusted store. Bundesbank has independent authority over German gold which is NOT legally hard-related to government activity. It could still be influenced by politics, of course [2].

[1, paid source] https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/mehr-wirtschaft/marce...

[2, last section is relevant] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/usa/id_101419346...

You need to read 2.5 sentences into your link to see that it matches the headline of this thread:

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has improved the tradability of its gold reserves by transferring part of the gold holdings from New York and Ottawa to London. This ensures that DNB is better prepared for severe crises.

In view of increasing geopolitical unrest, DNB is strengthening…

Of course the bank is not going to make a political statement, they have more important business to do. The article makes it pretty clear right at the top that the bank’s statement doesn’t mention Trump:

> Experts say that rhetoric appears inherently related to the abrasiveness of the Trump administration towards traditional allies.

Also, the “experts” are just right here. Are you gonna say that Trump hasn’t been throwing our allies under the bus?

I mean yes, but also there are some rumours about the new york gold vaults themselves.

There is a persistent rumour that there is a physical link between jpmorgan and comex. My understanding is that there is no real way to audit whats in there (unlike the BoE where they have tour guides that show you the gold)

> Bitcoin in ETF

yes, but why would you want to? The only thing you would gain is instant trade settling (assuming the exchange is open)

I know it sounds like europe is a financial backwater, but we have all the things the US has, apart from the capitalisation.

People still buy BTC (let alone central banks)?

The world has plenty of lithium in reserve in many different countries, including the United States, China, Australia, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.

I thought it was data

Straw man fallacy. There are plenty of people who have been very concerned that both of those categories are weakening the foundations of the US-based financial system. It is likely to contribute to the migration away from the US petrodollar and the US dollar as the world reserve currency, thereby weakening all of the benefits we have because so many people use our currency.

Arguably, though, the US has been "stealing" (in the form of sanctions and frozen assets) from other countries going back more than a few decades, at least as far as Iran in 1979, so your timeline doesn't hold up.

"Stealing" is wordplay when it comes to Russia because they are at war and the things that are "stolen" are assets being frozen to help pay restitution for the war they started. And Russia would deny the oil stolen from their ships was theirs because the entire point of the "shadow fleet" is to obfuscate ownership, mix and match the fluid products, to create plausible deniability to avoid sanctions.

Russia is on the hook for a lot of damage done to Ukraine.