Germany moved 111t from New York in 2016, and, afaict, nothing since then. There's still 1236t left.
Italy also keeps over 1000t in New York (no plans for repatriation).
This is effectively outsourcing that process to the banks.
If the Banque de France holds physical in New York and sells it to JPMorgan (nothing moves) and then in Paris buys contract for physical from UBS, there will probably need to be physical gold that moves.
In all likelihood, Swiss gold held by e.g. a Gulf customer might be sold to Paris (nothing moves) and JPMorgan may entice Venezuela to take those contracts on its balance sheet (nothing moves). But if it’s a big trade, the price of delivering physical in Paris (or Genève) will go above spot in New York at which point it’s profitable for JPMorgan to take delivery, load up planes and physically ship gold.
It’s typically flown [1].
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
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?
[0]: See the link in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50134172
Not sure if "The U.S governments gold reserves" also includes the ones from other countries though.
"The Homestake Mine was a deep underground gold mine (8,000 feet or 2,438 m) located in Lead, South Dakota. Until it closed in 2002, it was the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. The mine produced more than forty million troy ounces (43,900,000 oz; 1,240,000 kg) of gold during its lifetime. This is about 2,500 cubic feet (71 m3) or a volume of gold roughly equal to 18,677 US gallons.
...
In 1876, settlers Fred and Moses Manuel, Alex Engh, and Hank Harney discovered the Homestake deposit during the Black Hills Gold Rush. The Black Hills had been guaranteed to the Lakota Nation by the Fort Laramie Treaty, but the land was stolen for its gold."
When the illegal miners moved in on the Black Hills, Crazy Horse would on occasion raid them to sieze their gold, after which he would re-bury it.
Sounds like a refining bottleneck.
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].
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].
Where are those mines opening? In “Australia, Canada and the US,” which “accounted for the largest share of new gold production.”
[1] https://www.skillings.net/gold-refining-report-global-standa...
[2] https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/metal-refiners-t...
[3] https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/refining-pipelin...
[4] https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...
Sounds as if there is a point at which digging and refining is more expensive than buyers are willing to pay, so when demand goes up it takes time to expand supply.
How are service exports counted? All together? Or not considered exports?
Airliners and military aircraft are expensive. Consider that nearly the entire aircraft production capacity of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin as well as the engine production capacity of GE and P&W are booked for years to come. Also, unlike Airbus which has multiple final assembly plants across the world, Boeing only does final assembly in the US.
So many trillion-dollar valued AI-focused companies.
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.
A lot of this stuff is just business as usual, and then tabloids like to turn it into some doom and gloom nonsense.
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.
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.
Sincere question.
Nations like to use it for reserves because it’s stable, historically fit for the purpose of exchange, and well-understood. You can “count” it and use this to settle balances in a way that outsiders can’t easily interfere with.
Almost all “value” is strange and complex. Why is Francium, which is less useful than even gold, worth a theoretical $28 billion per ounce? (Not that you would find any buyers for that quantity.) Why is a Black Lotus card worth $3 million? Why is a dollar worth whatever you can buy for a dollar?
Massivly surprised to see a link to this storyline/paradigm here on HN, great!
Cheers! :-))
And, gold is limited (in recoverable quantities) in Earth's crust. Nobody can print a bunch more of it, unlike fiat currency.
Between those two, it's what many people reach for when they fear that the government is going to devalue their currency. They can buy now, with currency that will soon be worth less, and what they buy will be worth something even after the currency becomes worth less.
Because you sell it cheap.
> Almost seems like crypto, it has value because it is somewhat rare… and everyone else also thinks it has value.
Exactly.
It has value because it won't spoil and you can sell it later gor the same or more because it's scarce.
This is not some big currency or export program. It's most likely Grandma and Grandpa hawking their jewelry.
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.
>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.
> 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.
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.
For example:
June
Oil at $1 a barrel
Gold at $10 a ton
100 barrels of oil exported - $100
9 tons of gold exported - $90
By value, oil is the top export.
——-
July
Oil at $1 a barrel
Gold at $9 a ton
100 barrels of oil exported - $100
12 tons of gold exported - $108
By value, gold is now the top export.
——-
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.
https://logisticsmaterial.com/trade/americas-biggest-exports...
edit: A better source that uses Census BEA data: https://ustradesignals.com/statistics/exports-by-industry
and says the same thing.
edit2: A third source using different data saying the same thing. https://tradeint.com/insights/us-export-data/#elementor-toc_...
For instance, TradeInt advertises it is trusted by Samsung, but I can't find any record of Samsung utilizing TradeInt for anything. TradeInt advertises a 5-star rating on platforms like ProductHunt, yet the person who created the listing created their account when TradeInt launched and has no followers or other activity since 2024.
They all appear to be blogspam, from my perspective.