The fact that this question needs asking tells a lot about how other countries see the current administration.
They've been asking this question since before 2013. The writing has been on the wall since the US started demonstrating that it thinks debt monetisation is an acceptable strategy.
Have outlets like Deutsche Welle been speaking like this since 2013? I don't really think so. Not to defend the past administrations, but that the question is starting to hit mainstream media does in fact tell a huge lot about this current one.
This has been a topic of continuous debate since at least ~2000 in Germany. The German Wikipedia has a whole section covering it¹. Obviously, the debate gets more intense every time the relationship between Germany and USA gets strained.<p>¹) <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Goldreserven#Diskussion_um_die_Lagerung_im_Ausland" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Goldreserven#Diskussi...</a>
They physically moved 300 tons of gold from the US to Germany during 2013~2017. I think actions weight more than words.
France was back in 1971, though it was less about safety and more about whether we actually had enough gold to delivery.
Earliest I can find is 2017: <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-repatriates-gold-reserves-ahead-of-schedule/a-40208045" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/germany-repatriates-gold-reserves-ahea...</a>
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It a little different now. POTUS may not be put to bed before the sundowners hits and decide to order his minions to seize the gold on truth social.
Debt monetization is not happening. There's been significant expansion of the money supply, which got the US through COVID at a one-off cost of about 10% inflation in one year, which I think was a reasonable cost of covering the crisis (especially compared to the GDP response in less generous countries!)<p>What's happening is a much simpler, more drastic concern: does the US respect its international commitments?
> <i>There's been significant expansion of the money supply, which got the US through COVID at a one-off cost of about 10% inflation in one year</i> […]<p>Not just the US: a lot of countries implemented stimulus packages to get their economy going post-COVID.<p>The inflation of these programs was unexpected/predicted:<p>* <a href="https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/inflation-fears-and-biden-stimulus-look-korean-war-not-vietnam" rel="nofollow">https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in...</a><p>I think it's also worth noting that a lot of people have 'forgotten' other factors happening besides stimulus and monetary (central bank) policy—especially when it comes to energy and food prices:<p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...</a>
The US stopped respecting its international commitments in Trump's first term when it single-handedly withdrew from the JCPOA (singed by way more countries than just the US) without a single valid reason to do so.<p>Since then, it flip-flopped on the Paris Agreement, single-handedly put tariffs on goods imported from literally every single country in the world, withdrew from WHO and so on and so on.<p>Not only does the US not respect the commitments it already agreed to, it hasn't done so for the past 10 or years.
"Debt monetization" and "seizing other countries' gold" are somewhat orthogonal.
If your neighbor was taking payday loans and pawning silverware, would you trust him to hold onto your jewelry?
Well I can't speak for all the people who own gold, but I expect the order of actions they'd generally prefer is move the gold to a vault somewhere they think is financially stable first and then engage in a relaxed debate about the merits of storing gold here or there second. It doesn't cost that much to move a bit of metal around.<p>If countries enter the lunatic phase of money printing you never quite know what they're going to do next. But it probably isn't going to be good for asset owners and it may well already be too late to get things out of well known vaults. Better to be a bit early.
This question has needed asking since 1971, when Nixon "temporarily" ended USD gold convertibility, if not before.
Sorry, but I really have to call this out as pedantic and irrelevant at a time when the main risk is the US going fascist. The Germans in particular are sensitive to that trend.<p>They're not motivated by an abstract argument. Any moment you're going to see a comment about how they should've put their money in crypto or some foolishness like that. This is not about central banking or government issued currencies. This is about a specific risk of dictatorship and war.
I don’t think this is correct. This is about German politics. Their central bank has been attempting to repatriate gold since 2013 in an effort to centralize their holdings. It’s also not just about the US. In theory, Germany could move all its gold holdings to Switzerland. Where there is a major trading hub. The fact that they want it back in the country is domestic politics.
France just did that and even made some gains. Was in HN today as well.
Germany has lost it, no farsightedness or longer plan. So frustrating how the German gov is failing on these longer term issues and are ground up in day-to-day noise. Flood the zone with shit comes to mind.
I don't think so. Most Germans would be okay with having the gold transferred to Canada or Switzerland or the UK.
Everything that happens in politics happens because someone managed to assemble a powerful enough coalition. Maybe some people wanted to repatriate gold before, but not enough to make it happen. Now suddenly, there are enough people.
<p><pre><code> pedantic, adjective.
marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects
</code></pre>
The only narrow focus I see is yours.<p>> This is not about central banking or government issued currencies. This is about a specific risk of dictatorship and war.<p>It's about both things. And the parent comment you are dismissing was <i>also</i> about the power of the president to upend the established order.
Does this question need asking?
Trump is seen as an unpredictable, fickle, spiteful and erratic, dictator.
There probably should be a maximum legal age for the president and congresspeople (e.g. 65 aka "retirement age"). The guy is 78. It's common and expected for brain health to deteriorate, it's not a huge surprise, but the guy has too much ego/narcissism to ever admit that this is happening, and the people in his administration won't want to admit that they put a toxic narcissist with dementia into power and defended him way past the point where it was reasonable to do so.<p>There's many simple, small changes the US could put in place to make its political system less corrupt.
Love this movie <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard_with_a_Vengeance" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard_with_a_Vengeance</a>
Probably safe as long as Germany is amenable to supporting "American interests" which can be anything and everything as decided by a human RNG they choose to elect.
I want America to go back to being as it was before
Back when it used military power to commit war crimes the world over, and gained or maintained financial capital supremacy from it?
As compared to now, when it can only use military power to commit war crimes on a smaller scale, and is throwing away American hegemony in the process?
> <i>Back when it used military power to commit war crimes the world over, and gained or maintained financial capital supremacy from it? As compared to now, when it can only use military power to commit war crimes on a smaller scale, and is throwing away American hegemony in the process?</i><p>Such comments either <i>are</i> propaganda or they play into the hands of propagandists.<p>There is a <i>huge</i> difference in the degree of corruption and malfeasance of this administration. Implying that the current regime is so similar to prior ones downplays the critical importance of restoring competence.
> compared to now, when it can only use military power to commit war crimes on a smaller scale<p>The fact that the US is not as powerful as it used to be may actually make it dangerous. "On a smaller scale" doesn't mean it cannot destroy the world's economy, as we are seeing now.
I want America to go back to being as it was in precisely 1998.<p>When there'd be UN resolutions <i>before</i> the armed intervention, a casus belli with (non-fake) evidence of genocide, a peacekeeping force with troops from 39 countries, and captured leaders tried. And the peacekeeping force was able to deliver peace reasonably effectively, instead of bleeding troops and money for decades on end.<p>And although to some it seemed like an American president trying to distract domestic political attention from his sexual misdeeds, it was just a consensual blowjob from an adult woman.<p>Peace had just come to Northern Ireland, western relations were improving with Russia (newly democratic) and China (sure to soon adopt democracy as they open up to the world). The first parts of the International Space Station had just been launched. School shootings weren't a thing, the one a year later would be shocking and the cause of major soul-searching. Also Half-Life was game of the year.
“Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as [AI] started thinking for you it really became [AI’s] civilization, which is of course what this is all about.”<p>— Agent Smith, looking out the window at a circa-1998 American city skyline
It's notable how little effort they've put into legitimacy for the Iran war, compared to the "coalition of the willing".
Yeah actually that was preferable. Go look at the fuel prices around the world if you want to analyse why.
People only notice now because the “right” kind of people are suddenly affected.<p>Just like the invasion of Ukraine became the most important topic globally for years, and made everyone virtue signal about how important sovereignty supposedly is, whereas sovereignty somehow didn’t matter in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, South Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, and I don’t know where else.
When it was stable and didn't do bad things blatantly like it's the norm.
That was a very narrow window of time, mostly the time between the fall of the USSR ending the Cold War up to 9/11, so about a 10 years period since the end of WW2.<p>Before that the USA was aiding and fostering violent dictatorships, helping them to perform coups all around if they were amenable to the US's interests (aka: they were anti-commies) like in Latin America, Iran itself, etc.; bombing countries where their right-wing coups failed like in Vietnam during its independence period after French rule, for example.
> didn't do bad things blatantly like it's the norm.<p>Sorry to break it to you, but heads in sand doesn't make history not happen...
incredibly ignorant comment
You sound like someone who learns all the memes about why the US is bad. Have you learned other memes, or maybe any history?
Reading hackernews comments in the morning from Europeans always wakes me up. It’s like a Markov chain of Reddit comments about how Europe doesn’t need the US
> maybe any history?<p>What do you think the memes are based on?
> reposting a flagged and deleted comment to this comment (why?)<p>The big difference before was that america commit war crimes, but it did so in a socially acceptable way and was able to keep a polite face in important company.
It's like how being a manager at tech companies is 95% speaking affluently and sounding like you know what you're doing (and also like 80% being white). We used to sound like we knew what we were doing. Now we don't.
Me too. Pre-Columbus would be preferred.
That’s gone. There is no going back in life
Ironically, that is what MAGA wants as well.<p>The trouble is that everyone chooses their own favorite bits from the past and ignores the rest, plus succumbs to unrealistically positive stereotypes about the past.
You can't go back. When Trump goes away, the conditions that let him rise to power are still there.
Back when we justified foreign wars with Domino theory and it must be true because Walter Cronkite would never repeat something that wasn't a rigorously validated fact?<p>Or maybe 20ish years before that when we violently restructured the government or Iran at the behest of supposed allies?<p>Or how about when we sold our industry overseas because a steel mill who's pollution we can't control on the other side of the world is better than one in Ohio?<p>It boggles the mind that people cannot grasp that the sum total of bad and shortsighted decisions of the past are what created the present conditions.
17th century America would be ideal !<p>Then again as a Brit I am a bit biased
Slavery-era America was .. not a good place for <i>everyone</i>.
I have always said that going back 1400s would be best.
I’ll take 19th century for the homesteading act.<p>The government should give away its excess land to me, not sell it to their cronies.
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But it was like this before. Its just that now the sewer that was keeping it all hidden has now broken and it is spewing out all over the world.
Pull it.<p>The French sold theirs and bought new stock on the European market.
Am I missing something but I can't see full article? All I see is like a 100 words preview, is this the whole thing?
Betteridge's Law of Headlines states that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with "no".
isnt the question more like: "Is it _still_ there?"<p>:-))
With Trump? Obviously not. The rule of law doesn't concern him. They should remove it asap like France.
Germany should ask for its gold in 3 years from now.
No.
What would Germany want if it were to get attacked by Russia with the US conspicuously missing from NATO?
Of course not. That's why Charles de Gaulle repatriated French gold from the New York Fed in the 1960s. Before Trump, there was Nixon, the US has form in reneging on its commitments.<p>It seems there are still 138 tons of gold left over that will be recovered by 2028:<p><a href="https://www.mining.com/france-pulls-last-gold-held-in-us-for-15b-gain" rel="nofollow">https://www.mining.com/france-pulls-last-gold-held-in-us-for...</a>
I might be wrong in my reading, but i read the article as stating that while all french gold is now in France, some of that gold is still below modern standards, not that there still remains any gold in the USA.
For Germany's national interests, the ideal probably would have been repatriation back in early 2010. A decade after Poland had joined NATO, half a decade after the Baltic States had - the threat of Russia somehow seizing the gold was at a nadir. The 2007-9 fiscal crisis was safely past, the Euro crisis not yet too dire, Obama was in the White House, and the winds were otherwise favorable for quietly sailing Germany's gold back home.<p>Second best might have been for Germany to get its gold back in mid-2021 - Biden in the White House, but events of 6 Jan '21 making it <i>really</i> obvious that the US wasn't nearly so stable as in the good old days.<p>Vs. raising the subject now*, with a very temperamental administration in Washington, feels ill-advised. Though I'm probably marking myself as a senile idealist, to even think of a national gov't, or leading media outlet, intelligently working for its nation's long-term interests.<p>From another angle, I could see leaving it in NYC as a symptom of advanced calcification of Germany's politics and gov't bureaucracy. Moving the gold home would require major decisions, real organizing, and competent execution. Vs. the relative do-nothing of inaction, forever turning the crank of old routines, is so much easier.<p>*Yes, I noticed the article's 2 Feb 2026 date.
We don't even need to theorize how this can go wrong. We've got a real example: the French CFA system that is used to do economic colonialism in West Africa [1]. Basically, it works like this:<p>14 French-speaking Africian former colonies keep significant (>50%) of their gold reserves with the French treasury and use the CFA Franc as a currency, which is pegged to the Euro.<p>The colonial model is one of discouraging or even outright banning being self-sufficient. Crops that might otherwise feed the local populace are replaced to exportable cash crops. In particular, that's the World Bank/IMF model of "helping".<p>Anyway, Germany isn't a US imperial interest in the same way Cote d'Ivoire is for France... yet. Still, there are other mechanisms beyond gold that the US uses to influence or even control Germany (ie NATO).<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-african-cfa-franc-works-as-an-enabler-and-barrier-to-development/" rel="nofollow">https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-afr...</a>
not according to Die Hard 3
Not really "should Germany move it?", rather "can Germany move it?"
The other article on France's gold reserves mentioned that France sold their older gold bars in the US, and used the money to purchase higher-standard gold bars in Europe. In their case, they did that over many decades and just finished now.
> In their case, they did that over many decades and just finished now<p>They repatriated the remaining gold (5% of reserve) over 2y.<p>The bulk of the gold that was held in the US was moved back in 60s.
And that is a way to cover up non-existence, packed as convenience
Of course, why not? Imagine anything blocking it would crash wall street.<p>Do you think Europeans are going to have a problem buying/selling US stonks any time soon?
Well, France did it, sixty years ago, didn't it?
At today's prices, that's around 1400 tons of gold. It's made out of lots of individual gold bars, and they can certainly move it in increments, by road then air or sea, unless the American government stops them doing it.<p>People ship million-dollar assets all the time. It would be a huge task to make 160,000 such trips, though.
Or like france did. Sell in the US, buy in london with delivery to your european vault of choice.
They can also sell it in the US, buy it in Europe, as France did. It's also the preferable route because IIRC the Chinese have had suspicions about the quality of their gold holdings held in the US for sometime now. That is, US-stored gold is not of the same quality grade as in the rest of the world.
The usual claim, which is difficult to prove without physical access to the bars, is that some bars were made by melting and casting the confiscated gold coins that FDR gathered in the 1930s.<p>Such bars would not be to the 99.9 percent gold standard set by the London Bullion Market Association. They would instead be at about 90% purity, since American gold coins had 10% copper added, which makes the gold harder and more wear-resistant.<p>See <a href="https://www.bundesbank.de/en/press/press-releases/bundesbank-successfully-wraps-up-run-up-phase-of-gold-repatriation-670568" rel="nofollow">https://www.bundesbank.de/en/press/press-releases/bundesbank...</a> however, no explanation is given, only that the bars were melted, purified and then recast.
The Deutsche Bundesbank has a long list of every single gold bar in their possession (including those currently stored in GB and USA), including their weight (to 0.1 gram) and purity (at least 995/1000 as far as I can tell).<p><a href="https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/743058/9869caef634ce1ae4042328093d247d0/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/goldbarrenliste-data.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/743058/9869caef634ce...</a> - Federal Reserve Bank of New York starts at page 2016 (PDF:2019)
> US-stored gold is not of the same quality grade as in the rest of the world<p>... to put it mildly. Nobody has audited the gold in decades and even its owners (banks of foreign countries) are not allowed to inspect it.
> unless the American government stops them doing it.<p>Like they had any authority to dictate what Germany can do with their property, but hey
There’s nuance and a difference between ownership and possession
Yes, it's called the nuclear umbrella, Potsdam '45 and the fact that the Soviets are out of the equation. Even with the Soviets in place the Americans had no second thoughts about getting rid of Bretton Woods when it suited them.
Possession is 90% ownership. In this case, especially with Trump, it's 100%
or rather "move when?"<p>Moving 1,400 tonnes might take years. The window to act is closing.
Charles de Gaulle warned of French gold deposits being at risk, his successor sent French warships to recover French gold. That was decades ago.<p>I think the question is moot now.<p>Update: corrected a bit of history.
its the wrong question!<p>The question should why has not Germany pulled gold out to server two goals:<p>1. Financial gain
2. another step towards economic independence from USA<p>France already did the right thing....<p>Pay attention, as it does not hurt the world and economic system for multiple world reserve currencies to exist....EU might as be a reserve currency.
It wasn’t safe in the 70s lol
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Not really Trump-specific is it, given Europe seized a ton of Russian assets. Maybe they just realized how easy that was and that nobody is going to war over it.
Exactly this. There were thousands of warnings that the western order conducting arbitrary seizure of treaty-protected deposits held by the outgroup was always a slippery slope to everybody getting hurt, right back to confiscating insured Cypriot bank deposits a decade and a half ago.<p>But we live in a world where it is considered poor form to expect history qualifications in elected office, so this kind of crash, followed by the long descent, is baked in.
> insured Cypriot bank deposits<p>They were only insured up to something like 100kEuro, and it was values above that amount that got "bailed in" when the banks failed.
> <i>arbitrary seizure of treaty-protected deposits</i><p>One, Russia’s stuff hasn’t been seized. Europe tried. But, in true form, failed to get its act together.<p>Two, is the argument really that Trump would be constrained by precedent if Europe and the U.S. got into a situation where seizing the former’s gold comes on the table?
Freezing assets is simple. Seizing them is a huge pain. The EU has a hard time agreeing how to do it and who takes the liability for the Russian claims.
The EU has a hard time agreeing how to do anything, but the net effect for Russia seems about the same either way. If the 'freezing' lasts forever, what is the practical difference from the Russian perspective?
The assets will be returned when the Ukrainian territory is returned.
not committing now = keeping your options open. it's smart. usually who has more different available moves is in a better situation. money are not going anywhere and if EU doesn't urgently need them it's a nice bonus in future.
Unless Putin's scientists really discover a way to keep him alive forever, Russia will likely one day have a different leader and a different administration, which may be more amenable to diplomacy.<p>It sounds optimistic, but after Stalin came Khruschev, a much more "normal" person. Though it is true he didn't last even a decade. But there was a lot of political thaw in between, and some of this thaw survived.
Indeed, my stocks are still "frozen" by EuroClear and I can't use it - but somehow if you call it "not seizing" it is trustworthy behavior?
Europe didn't seize them, the EU and US froze them, and the dividends of those assets in the EU are being seized. There's a big difference, the US actually seizing any country's gold would be much more serious.
> given Europe seized a ton of Russian assets<p>Those assets are frozen, not seized.
To me frozen and seized are roughly interchangeable and mean, minimally, a temporary capture of control of an asset. Although maybe there's some strict legal difference I'm not aware of, I'm not sure there's much practical difference from the Russian PoV.<p>Confiscation would be e.g. definitively taking control and disposing of it, the proceeds going in to the general funds of the relevant country.
It’s brave to assume the gold is still there. Nobody checks it; last time they did, a bunch of bars were made of tungsten.<p>If you’re someone guarding the gold, you’d have to be stupid not to replace it with tungsten. A single bar is a lifetime of wages. It’s not like anyone will ever notice, it’s a reserve that will never be spent.
You can't just walk in and out carrying 12kg bars. Also I don't think you can just buy a bar of tungsten, you gotta smelt it, coat with gold, not trivial. That kind of operation would involve a lot of cooperating people. You also need to convert gold to dollars which might not be as trivial as you think.<p>So maybe that happens, but it's a lot more complicated. And, of course, there are measures against that happening.
> <i>Nobody checks it</i><p>The New York Fed’s gold is constantly being checked by bajillions of people.<p>> <i>last time they did, a bunch of bars were made of tungsten</i><p>Source?
It’s a long time gold bug conspiracy theory. There was a case of a Canadian bar that came from a bank that had a tungsten core but there was a huge outcry about that and it was decades ago.<p>Chinese gold has been tungsten spiked, fairly often actually, but it’s a known fraud vector there so is broadly audited.
Having your stuff stored in another country is ultimately a voucher of confidence, I can't see Trump or anyone else willingly misusing that trust. I do think the Western leaders need to temper their tendencies for isolationism these days, what's the alternative guys? And why even think that other people/cultures will want you in their swimming-pool if you can't keep your own one clean/functional?<p>(this comment also covers France recently bringing home their gold)
I do find the down votes odd, comment seem to contribute to the discussion, is it a reflex move because of intense dislike of the sitting US president?
> the Western leaders need to temper their tendencies for isolationism these days, what's the alternative guys?<p>Agreed, but tempering their tendencies for isolationism doesn't mean trusting a country that threatens to invade so-called allies. There are many other places, starting in the EU (since Germany is already in the EU, of course).
Western reflexes towards isolationism comes from two factors:<p>1. Long-term backlash against unchecked globalization. Every western country has to come to grips with the long-term impacts of the deindustrialization that globalization has enabled - this impacts their domestic societal stability, their long-term economic growth, and their ability to act internationally and independently.<p>2. One particular western leader (who happened to come to power, at least partly riding the wave of the backlash above) has accelerated this trend by taking the possibility of trans-Atlantic (+plus a few Pacific trends) tradebloc to form "globalization lite" as a middle ground solution (honestly, I have no idea how viable this would have actually been), and took it behind the shed and shot it, and then burned the corpse.<p>Globalization was bearable in part because America did infact run the game, and tended to run the game reasonably well. US aligned nations could all see China growing in strength, but they all figured that as long as they played their role and played nice, that when the time came, they could join the US in whatever new game it wanted to play, or join the US in helping push back. What they perhaps did not count on was just has careless America could be, or that America would want to stop playing with them at all.<p>Towards your point on confidence and trust. As others have pointed out, Trump has also violated trust in all sorts of ways. Trump delights in norm and trust breaking, as a form of dominance display - both as meat for the base, but also to satisfy his own impulses. But perhaps worse, I think a lot of people are now also calculating that Trump could easily misuse or violate trust without really knowing it. Iran should have clarified to everyone that the Trump administration is willing the act on deeply flawed (or perhaps absent) second order (or even move-countermove) planning.
> <i>I can't see Trump or anyone else willingly misusing that trust</i><p>Does this demonstrate a lack of imagination or some kind of hermetically sealed alternative reality?
You really can’t see Trump abusing someone’s trust?
> I can't see Trump or anyone else willingly misusing that trust<p>Is this sarcasm? It’s hard to tell these days.
You could replace the word Germany with the US and this article would still make sense.
This is the dumbest thing that has ever been posted on this site.