Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts

Germany is facing calls to withdraw its billions of euros’ worth of gold from US vaults, spurred on by the shift in transatlantic relations and the unpredictability of Donald Trump.

Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£122bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York.

    • trollercoaster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      24·
      14 hours ago

      As /u/HowRu68@lemmy.world said, spreading the risk. During the Cold War, there was a real risk of West Germany being overrun within a week in case of an all-out Soviet invasion. In order to prevent all of the gold reserves being lost in that case, Germany chose to store significant parts of it abroad.

    • Riddick3001@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      37·
      15 hours ago

      Spread of risk was probably the reason. It is supposed to be the best secured place/ vault in the world. But since the Orange menace…nothing is.

    • Melchior@feddit.orgEnglish
      8·
      11 hours ago

      Right the gold is mostly in the Federal Reserve in New York. The big advantage of that is, that it is easy to both buy and sell gold from there. Basically the only thing they do, is to change the label and it is done. That is especially true, since it can be easily sold for US dollars, which still is the most important currency in the world.

      However I would not be surprised, if a lot of potential buyers, prefer their gold to be in a large vault in Frankfurt over one in New York.

      • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.orgEnglish
        3·
        8 hours ago

        That’s one of those things the US profits from on which is getting destroyed by Trump. It’s a great thing to have other countries conducting their trade with their gold reserves in your currency in your country. Trump is destroying exactly that trust that enabled that and if trust is gone, it’s hard to reestablish again