Amid severe global volatility and economic uncertainty, the Netherlands took a sensational decision, relocating nearly 86 tons of gold it had stored in the US and Canada to the Bank of England in London. The Dutch central bank secretly carried out this massive operation over several months to safely transfer this gold, worth billions of dollars, between March and August this year. Initially, 27 tons of gold were moved from US and Canada banks to the Netherlands and then on to London; for the remainder, facing difficulties in direct transport, they devised a plan to sell the gold held in New York on the spot and use the proceeds to buy back and store gold in the London market instead. The Dutch central bank took this precautionary step amid ongoing US-Canada trade war tariffs, the US-Iran conflict, and the West Asia crisis, all of which are heavily affecting global trade and creating uncertainty in the US economy.
London is the world’s largest gold market, where buying, selling, or pledging gold for immediate funds is easy. The Bank of England’s vault on Threadneedle Street is the world’s most secure, able to withstand bomb attacks and impossible for thieves to drill into, holding a fifth of all the gold on Earth, over 90 percent of which belongs to central banks and international institutions from more than 30 countries. In emergencies or trade transactions between nations, gold need not be physically moved — staff simply shift it between countries’ compartments within the vault, allowing nations to trade quickly using these London reserves to safeguard their economies during financial emergencies, which is the reasoning behind the Netherlands’ master plan.