Xinhua Finance, Belgrade, September 8 (Xinhua) -- Since the beginning of this year, some European countries have successively reduced the scale of their gold reserves held in the United States. Market analysis holds that this is out of consideration for the safety of the location where the gold is stored and to avoid geopolitical risks, which highlights the credit risk brought to the United States by its increasingly weaponizing tools such as the US dollar.

The Netherlands Bank announced on September 2nd that it transferred approximately 86 tons of gold from New York, the United States and Ottawa, Canada to London, the United Kingdom from March to August this year. After the adjustment, the proportion of the Netherlands' gold reserves stored in New York dropped from 31.3% to 18.5%, while the proportion stored in London rose from 18.1% to 32.1%.

In April, the Banque de France announced that it had completed the adjustment of 129 tons of gold originally stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between July 2025 and January 2026, accounting for approximately 5% of France's gold reserves.

Between 2013 and 2017, the Deutsche Bundesbank repatriated a total of 674 tons of gold, including 300 tons from New York and 374 tons from Paris, France. This year, there have been calls in Germany to repatriate more gold overseas. The Alternative for Germany party stated that all overseas gold should be brought back to Germany.

Multiple analysts believe that Europe's repatriation of its gold reserves from the United States is related to reserve security and geopolitical factors. Laurent Schwartz, president of the French gold trading institution Banque Populaire d'Or, said that central banks have been adjusting the locations where they store their gold reserves over the past 10 years, and "the current political environment in the United States may prompt some central banks to prefer other storage locations.

Nader Antar, Executive Vice President of US-based Brink's Inc., said: "The intensification of geopolitical and economic uncertainties, coupled with the growing role of gold as a strategic reserve asset, seems to have contributed to this trend.

Frederic Schneider, a senior researcher at the Qatar Global Committee for Global Issues, said that the Netherlands' reason for repatriating its gold reserves from the United States is the same as that of Germany, France, Italy and other countries over the past decade: to gain actual control over their own gold reserves. He pointed out that this desire has become stronger in recent years. The United States' increasing weaponization of the US dollar, international trade relations and international payment systems has made many countries nervous.

Steven Blitz, Chief US Economist at TS Lombard Global Macroeconomic Research, a London-based organization, believes that central banks are not unreasonable in considering potential risks, and this concern will persist for many years.

Paul Donovan, Chief Economic Analyst at UBS Global Wealth Management, stated that measures to enhance gold liquidity are "not normal behavior". He believes that, given that central banks' holdings of gold often reflect a relatively prudent approach to reserve management, the signals such adjustments send around "trust" and the United States' international reputation remain "quite significant".

The 2026 Global Central Bank Gold Reserve Survey released by the World Gold Council shows that 74% of central bank reserve managers expect the share of the US dollar in global reserves to decline over the next five years, 84% of the surveyed central banks expect the proportion of gold in reserves to rise, and 45% of the surveyed central banks plan to increase their own gold reserves in the coming year. Over the past four years, the amount of gold purchased by central banks of various countries has been significantly higher than that a decade ago.

A new round of European adjustments to the storage locations of gold reserves occurred after a sharp rise in international gold prices this year. Data shows that in January this year, the international gold price once soared to an all-time high of approximately 5,600 US dollars per ounce. As of September 7th, the international gold price hovered around 4,400 US dollars per ounce.

SunSirs has been continuously tracking price data for over 200 commodities for nearly 20 years, please contact support@sunsirs.com for subscription.