[bell-cot]

> [...] why Germany held gold in new york to begin with: It's the easiest way to resolve USD-Euro currency exchange at the central bank level [...]

Interesting. Might you know how much US gold is held in Frankfurt (Germany), for the same purpose?

[mattalex]

Effectively none. The US has a huge trade deficit with Germany/Europe so there is practically never a case where the US receives gold from Germany: It's always more then offset by the deficit.

The equivalent for the US would be the consumption goods that are already flowing into the US. I.e. US gets goods but doesn't sell enough to Germany, so the difference to maintain the total exchange rate is the Gold.

That's also why it was trivial for france to repatriate its gold compared to germany: Germany holds about 10x the amount of gold in the US compared to France (France was ~120 tons, Germany is roughly 1200 tons: France earned its gold through different trade).

That's also why it is such a complex thing to repatriate German reserves: France took almost 1 year to repatriate its gold. For Germany, the efforts would be decade spanning (though maybe with recent changes there is a little more urgency).