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?
This is similar to what the French did last year.
The other thing I noticed, is that as the article chose to mention:
> Gold that is held with the Bank of England must meet modern international trade standards
with implication being that the gold it previously held in the USA was not meeting those standards, but is that just journalistic fluff? what are those standards? (could be exact weights in g rather than purity?)
NB the Netherlands still has >200 tonnes of gold held in the USA & Canada.
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).
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.
The biggest chunk is in the Netherlands, but you want your gold also in other countries, so that you can still access is (and don't loose it) in case of an invasion. Hence almost half is in North America, a completely different (and (somewhat) allied) continent.
It's also easier to sell in certain markets, such as London.
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).
I don't think that's a problem, and it doesn't mean that Britain is not in Europe, IMO. Comes naturally with human perspective. "Where did you go this summer?" A) "I stayed in England"; B) "I travelled around Britain"; C) "I went to Europe". All perfectly understandable, I think..
In the San Francisco Bay Area, the locals refer to SF proper as “The City” (not “Frisco”.)
So, they may live in Cupertino, Palo Alto, or Oakland, but when they say “we’re going to The City for a concert on Saturday!” we can hear them pronounce those capital letters as an unambiguous reference to the one, true City.
I live in a city (a quite small one) and if I say that I'm going into the city, then it means I leave my neighbourhood (it's in the same city) and I'm going to the city centre.
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]
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.
> 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?
(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.
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.
Share of gold before relocation:
New York: 31.33%
Zeist: 30.83%
Ottawa: 19.72%
London: 18.12%
Share of gold after relocation
New York: 18.52%
Zeist: 30.83%
Ottawa: 18.52%
London: 32.13%
In other words, if you read the headline and thought the Netherlands was just pulling gold out of the US and it was pulling ALL of its gold out, you're not seeing the whole story.
And if you read the whole article, you'll see that all of the anti-Trump framing comes from "experts", not from the actual people moving the gold.
If you'd like to read the actual statement from the Dutch National Bank, it's here:
This is similar to what the French did last year.
The other thing I noticed, is that as the article chose to mention:
> Gold that is held with the Bank of England must meet modern international trade standards
with implication being that the gold it previously held in the USA was not meeting those standards, but is that just journalistic fluff? what are those standards? (could be exact weights in g rather than purity?)
NB the Netherlands still has >200 tonnes of gold held in the USA & Canada.
The difference between London and the US is that the bars are of different size (12.5 vs 1kg).
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.
It's also easier to sell in certain markets, such as London.
(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).
So, they may live in Cupertino, Palo Alto, or Oakland, but when they say “we’re going to The City for a concert on Saturday!” we can hear them pronounce those capital letters as an unambiguous reference to the one, true City.
There are a lot of Dutch people living in Canada.[4]
1. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_de_Graaff>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>
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.
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?
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49535526
Do Europeans have options to hold Bitcoin in ETFs, ETPs etc that are not storing the coins in the USA?
And if you read the whole article, you'll see that all of the anti-Trump framing comes from "experts", not from the actual people moving the gold.
If you'd like to read the actual statement from the Dutch National Bank, it's here:
https://www.dnb.nl/en/general-news/press-release-2026/dnb-im...