Between March and August, over a period of six months, the Dutch central bank quietly moved 86 tons of gold out of New York and Ottawa to London, saying the relocation left it "better prepared for serious crises." Confirming the move yesterday, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) said the decision was made "due to the increasing geopolitical unrest" and that it wanted to improve the "tradability" of Dutch gold.

"Gold stored in London at the Bank of England … is considered the most easily tradable gold in the world," DNB wrote. "This makes it the fastest way for DNB to deploy in a crisis situation. The part of the gold stock located in New York and Ottawa is less directly deployable."

London, home to the Bank of England's vaults and the world's largest over-the-counter gold trading market, has long served as the hub through which central banks can lend, swap, or sell bullion quickly. The placement of foreign gold at the New York Federal Reserve, by contrast, dates back to the postwar era, when countries kept reserves in the U.S. for safekeeping and dollar-linked transactions.

The DNB has not reallocated all of its gold reserves out of North America: of the 612 tons it holds, 18.5% remains in New York and Ottawa. It is not the first time the Dutch have brought gold home from abroad—DNB repatriated more than 100 tons from New York to Amsterdam in 2014, citing a wish to foster public confidence in the central bank's reserves.

The significance of the move was not lost on economists, coming in a climate in which a series of actions by the U.S. Treasury has—intentionally or not—drawn attention to rising risk premiums in the Treasury market.

As UBS's Paul Donovan remarked this morning: "One reason U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was reported to have intervened in the support of the yen in the past was the desire to prevent Japanese investors rushing for the exit of the U.S. Treasury bond market. While this was going on, the central bank of the Netherlands was apparently rushing to the exit of the New York Federal Reserve with as much gold as it could carry stuffed into its pockets."

Donovan added that the move to improve the liquidity of gold is "not normal behavior," continuing: "The direct market impact is nil, the gold is still held as gold, and gold held in London is traded in dollars, so there's no change in the foreign exchange markets directly.

"But, even allowing for the fact that central banks' gold holdings tend to represent some of the most conservative and risk-averse decisions one can find anywhere, the signals around trust and the international reputation of the United States are quite dramatic."

Risk profile

In March, the Banque de France—France's central bank—also announced it had sold 129 tons (5% of its total gold holdings) in New York and purchased gold in Europe instead. The DNB followed a similar path, selling the majority of its U.S. gold and repurchasing it closer to home rather than physically moving it.

The French central bank did not suggest that its 2025 decision was driven by geopolitical risk or liquidity concerns; rather, it cited a desire to bring the purity of its gold holdings above 99.99%, noting that the U.S.-held stock fell below that threshold. Still, any suggestion that central banks are uneasy about the risk profile of the U.S. is unhelpful to the nation's borrowing.

The Treasury Secretary said his intervention in the Japanese yen last month was intended to help stabilize financial conditions and trade in Asia, but it also conveniently steadied the economy of one of the United States' largest lenders. Bessent then announced a series of Treasury bond buybacks, which lowered elevated yields and eased financial conditions across the wider economy.

With U.S. national debt surpassing the $40 trillion mark a few weeks ago, questions about the country's fiscal trajectory continue to mount. While there are no signs at the moment of the much-debated bond market "reckoning," international banks moving their safest asset out of the U.S. raises questions about America's longtime safe-harbor status.