I wonder how much of that are foreign central banks moving their gold reserves out of the USA... France, The Netherlands and Germany have been moving gold.<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyn8q8gqxo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyn8q8gqxo</a>
France completely exited New York, the Netherlands roughly halved what they've stored there. That was in 2026. They didn't physically ship any of it, they sold it and rebought in Europe.<p>Germany moved 111t from New York in 2016, and, afaict, nothing since then. There's still 1236t left.<p>Italy also keeps over 1000t in New York (no plans for repatriation).
It’s specifically nonmonetary gold, so that’s a separate issue unless those nations were holding non-reserve gold here.<p>Although a sibling commenter mentioned that they moved their gold by selling it and rebuying it in Europe. If that gold qualifies as non-reserve gold after sale, and is moved out after sale to (for example) China, then perhaps?
Do they count as export if the owner doesn't change?
If central banks sell their gold in the US and buy new gold abroad (to save themselves physically transporting the gold across the ocean[0]), I suspect that the demand this creates for gold abroad will ultimately cause US gold exports to rise, too.<p>[0]: See the link in <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50134172">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50134172</a>
From the article:
> The U.S. government is still reporting that its gold reserves are unchanged, so these exports look to be coming from current mine output and recycling operations.<p>Not sure if "The U.S governments gold reserves" also includes the ones from other countries though.
I don't think that counts as exports although they could be selling in the US and buying locally where traders move the gold (then it will be counted as exports).
Probably all of it.
So not actually productive exports. Just draining the coffers as the criminals in charge loot the commons.
> majority of gold exports are going to Switzerland, almost certainly to the refiners there<p>Sounds like a refining bottleneck.<p>Globally, “refining capacity is operating at near-total utilization” [1]. That is particularly true in America, where refiners are “limiting purchases” [2] and “turning away new clients” [3].<p>Global demand for gold—lead by China—is surging. That, in turn, made gold “the most-developed commodity over 2020-25” with “the highest [new] mine count each year during the period” [4].<p>Where are those mines opening? In “Australia, Canada and the US,” which “accounted for the largest share of new gold production.”<p>[1] <a href="https://www.skillings.net/gold-refining-report-global-standards-and-2026-outlook/" rel="nofollow">https://www.skillings.net/gold-refining-report-global-standa...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/metal-refiners-take-ins-payments/" rel="nofollow">https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/metal-refiners-t...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/refining-pipeline-scrap-gold/" rel="nofollow">https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/refining-pipelin...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2026/09/gold-leads-in-global-new-mine-additions-since-2020" rel="nofollow">https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...</a>
I thought it was tokens
Would have thought advertising and transaction fees myself, but the article says it's usually oil (ok I should have thought of that), "pharmaceuticals" (mkay, seems cheaper to make elsewhere so that's a bit strange), or aircraft and their parts (wut? How many aircraft can the world need that it commonly tops the export chart of the wealthiest country?!)
I mean, wouldn't that make sense given the market caps?<p>So many trillion-dollar valued AI-focused companies.
If you think that USD value will drop sharply, it's a logical thing to do.
It’s more of losing trust in the US. If they don’t believe they’ll have access to it when needed or if they believe it might be seized for whatever made up reason, makes sense to move it somewhere they’ll have control over it.
Why would the dropping value of the USD be a factor in selling gold? Doesn't holding gold hedge against exactly that?<p>I think the real reason is that they're afraid of political instability in the US that may result in 1) an inability to retrieve their gold, or 2) the government confiscating it.
I don't quite follow. Countries hold gold to protect their own currency from devaluation, not bc they expected it to become stronger against a dollar.
If you have USD and you think it will value less soon, you change it to gold instead.
If you own gold in the US and think that the USD value will drop very low, you move out of the USD fearing gold retention.
How does holding gold protect from devaluation? No one has currency backed by gold any more.
> How does holding gold protect from devaluation?<p>I think the idea is to rise the value of your currency, you rise the demand for your currency, by selling for it something that everybody wants, like gold.<p>Of course this demand is artificial and you'll run out of hold to sell at some point, but it can hopefully carry you over thd bump.
If you sell something in US, you get paid in US dollars. If you believe dollars soon won't be worth the paper they are printed on, you immediately spend dollars on something that has durable value and take it with you instead.
It's more like if you think Trump is likely to say, actually that's my gold.
They think the Trump administration will confiscate it.
The article points out the primary source is recycling operations.<p>This is not some big currency or export program. It's most likely Grandma and Grandpa hawking their jewelry.<p>The cash for gold industry in the US is absolutely massive and growing. Most of it is fueled by boomers dumping their assets into gold and silver - and then cashing it out when times get worse.
How much of this is exports being ranked by value, and gold, even a little being worth a lot, quickly becomes the “top” export despite being relatively small in absolute quantity terms?
Was anyone confused by the title and thought we are exporting more gold in volume or weight than other products? It seems obvious that gold must be winning on value.
From the article:<p>>That’s not just because the price of gold reached record high prices. In February 2026, the tons of gold exported may have set an all-time record.
<p><pre><code> > Normally, America’s highest value exports are either oil, pharmaceuticals, or aircraft and their parts. Not now. Starting in October 2025, the value of gold exports has topped all other categories almost every month.
</code></pre>
From what I’m reading, the article does rank exports by value.<p>Relative to quantity, the price of gold might have less to do with why it’s the top of the list, but gold being more valuable in general might still be the main reason it’s at the top.<p>For example:<p>June<p>Oil at $1 a barrel<p>Gold at $10 a ton<p>100 barrels of oil exported - $100<p>9 tons of gold exported - $90<p>By value, oil is the top export.<p>——-<p>July<p>Oil at $1 a barrel<p>Gold at $9 a ton<p>100 barrels of oil exported - $100<p>12 tons of gold exported - $108<p>By value, gold is now the top export.<p>——-<p>Even though the price of gold dropped—-the inverse of our current situation to illustrate an extreme—-the general higher price of gold is more relevant to the ranking than its quantity increase.
Exports are typically ranked in dollars, not in kilograms. Do we think about the weight of GPUs a country exports or their value?
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ton for ton the US top export is CO², and it's largest import is O², or was, if it has slipped then that is the main reason behind the export of ag, as all of it is tied to actual industrial capacity
I doubt the veracity of this article. All previous metal exports from the US, including and not limited to gold, came third in exports as of mid-year.<p><a href="https://logisticsmaterial.com/trade/americas-biggest-exports/" rel="nofollow">https://logisticsmaterial.com/trade/americas-biggest-exports...</a><p>edit: A better source that uses Census BEA data: <a href="https://ustradesignals.com/statistics/exports-by-industry" rel="nofollow">https://ustradesignals.com/statistics/exports-by-industry</a><p>and says the same thing.<p>edit2: A third source using different data saying the same thing. <a href="https://tradeint.com/insights/us-export-data/#elementor-toc__heading-anchor-0" rel="nofollow">https://tradeint.com/insights/us-export-data/#elementor-toc_...</a>
Why'd you trust <i>this</i> particular article?<p><a href="https://imgur.com/a/bAbAFru" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/bAbAFru</a>
The article that you posted seems to be LLM slop with no references to their claims and the article in the post references data from bea.gov so :shrug:
Straight up read God.
All the gold was stolen from Africa or South America by the Europeans no?
Gold is tiny compared to oil and other energy exports. I would more watch for drop in energy exports, and how US is screwing its partners right now!