Dutch Central Bank is Moving Gold Reserves Out of North America

America’s place at the center of the global monetary system is changing fast.  Foreigners no longer trust Washington’s weaponized dollar, the inflating dollar, and the indebted dollar.  That distrust is showing up in European demands to take physical possession of their gold reserves.

The Dutch central bank is the latest to order their national gold reserves be moved from the United States and Canada.   It has quietly repatriated 86 tons of gold out of North America, the latest sign that European governments are treating bullion stored in the United States as a geopolitical risk as well as a financial reserve. 

De Nederlandsche Bank announced the return of its gold in an operation that ran from March to August. Of the roughly 313 tons it had held in New York and Ottawa, 86 ton were moved to London. About 59 tons were sold in New York and replaced with London Good Delivery bars; another 27 tons were shipped physically to DNB’s vault in Zeist, after which an equivalent quantity went on to the Bank of England. The Netherlands still owns 612.4 tons of gold.  London is now the largest storage site, at 32.1 percent, ahead of Zeist at 30.8 percent. New York and Ottawa each hold 18.5 percent, down from 31.3 percent and 19.7 percent. 

Governor Olaf Sleijpen framed the move as crisis preparedness. Gold at the Bank of England, he said, meets modern trading standards and can be mobilized faster than metal sitting across the Atlantic. Officials cited “increasing geopolitical unrest” and a desire for a more even spread of risk. 

The Dutch decision is the latest in a European pattern. Germany brought home 300 tons from New York and 374 tons from Paris between 2013 and 2020 so that half its reserve would sit in Frankfurt. For now it still keeps about 1,236 tons—roughly 37 percent of its stock—at the New York Fed. In 2026 economists and some politicians renewed calls to pull more of it back; the Bundesbank has so far declined. 

France finished a different kind of exit earlier this year. Between July 2025 and January 2026 the Banque de France sold its last 129 tons at the New York Fed and bought replacement bars in Europe, leaving it with no gold in Manhattan for the first time in about a century. Officials described the operation as a technical upgrade to London-standard bars, though the timing tracked rising transatlantic tension. 

The Netherlands itself had already repatriated 122.5 tons from New York in 2014. What has changed is the explicit language of unrest and deployability. Central banks still trust the Fed’s vaults, but they are no longer treating American storage as politically costless. Gold that cannot be sold quickly, they now say, is gold that may not serve its purpose when it is needed.

These nations are preparing for the unwinding of the post-World War II monetary system and the re-enthronement of gold.