Today, a large national poll in Spain showed trump as the largest national threat identified by citizens (81% agree), placing him well above putin. This is consistent even among right wing voters (71%). People also place "American military actions" and "global economic crisis caused by the US" as the largest global risks.
> The fact that this question needs asking tells a lot about how other countries see the current administration.
Not really. You just weren't paying attention before. To wit, countries (including Germany!) have been questioning the safety of storing gold in the United State long before the Trump administration.
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.
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?
(this comment also covers France recently bringing home their gold)
It’s always been convenient for Europeans to have America do the dirty work, which is why they could afford to keep military spending so low and deps to gas and oil high. That just doesn’t work anymore. And then there’s China, and I’m told that China has already surpassed the U.S. in many areas. If China takes Taiwan by force, we know that the West and the U.S. will have nothing left to stand up to them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It seems there are still 138 tons of gold left over that will be recovered by 2028:
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.
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:
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.
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".
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).
I'm a huge fan of those kinds of "laws"¹. My favorite one is Conway's law². Having said that Betteridge's Law never really convinced me. As far as my gut is concerned it's just always true for one in two cases.
2: "[O]rganizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations."
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 59.0 ms ] threadNot really. You just weren't paying attention before. To wit, countries (including Germany!) have been questioning the safety of storing gold in the United State long before the Trump administration.
Examples 2012: Venezuela Receives Last Shipment of Repatriated Gold Bars https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-31/venezuela...
2013: Bundesbank to retrieve $200bn of gold reserves (Bundesbank is Germany’s independent central bank) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/15/bundesbank-ret...
2014: Netherlands moves 122.5 from New York https://www.dutchnews.nl/2016/02/85796-2/
There's obviously more, but that gives you a sense of it.
(this comment also covers France recently bringing home their gold)
I think the question is moot now.
Update: corrected a bit of history.
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.
The question should why has not Germany pulled gold out to server two goals:
1. Financial gain 2. another step towards economic independence from USA
France already did the right thing....
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 seems there are still 138 tons of gold left over that will be recovered by 2028:
https://www.mining.com/france-pulls-last-gold-held-in-us-for...
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.
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".
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).
[1]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-afr...
The French sold theirs and bought new stock on the European market.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws
2: "[O]rganizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations."
The one that is stuck in a ridiculous quagmire in Ukraine, barely able to move frontlines in years?
Can Russia even afford to attack anyone else at this point?