Netherlands pulls gold out of the US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euronext_Dublin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stock_Exchange

That said, I'm not entirely clear how the exchange's market cap should or shouldn't be thought of in terms of the total market cap of assets that the exchange lets you trade. Or indeed the float of those assets, which is a concept I've only learned about due to SpaceX's nonsense IPO, so take my thoughts with an appropriate pinch of salt.

I don't disagree with that. (I mentioned Iran, a crisis that was precipitated by the current administration.)

I disagree with "Experts say that rhetoric appears inherently related to the abrasiveness of the Trump administration towards traditional allies" and "Having those reserves in the United States is a potential vulnerability...You can absolutely imagine a scenario where, for whatever reason, the Trump administration decides to hold onto them" etc.

> If the point is to get your gold away from the US and its president, why leave ~19% of if there?

Not all of the risk is "the USA may literally steal it", some of the risk is "UK may elect Farage who could be just as bad", and there's a non-zero chance that Trump is kicked out come November.

With a diversified portfolio, economic planning can be done in terms of probabilities; this is different from e.g. military planning, because the "portfolio" your military defends is "your nation" and this is somewhat more binary in success-vs.-fail.

> Why take gold out of Canada?

Because Canada is one of the places Trump is directly threatening.

Most countries held gold reserves as their currencies were backed by it. When money needed to move because of trade, the ratios of currencies backed by gold would shift as money got converted to other currencies. However, constantly moving physical gold back and forth with the ebs and flows of trade was impractical, so ownership of gold in central bank vaults usually just had its legal ownership marked on ledgers. Physical gold moving was more part of reconciliation. This description is an oversimplification as in practice, countries didn't always play by the rules of the gold standard (revaluations, going on and off the standard, etc), but you get the general idea.

This mostly ended as Bretton woods came into effect and the new system was basing the US dollars on gold, then other countries held direct US dollars and traded that instead. Countries could then convert those US dollars into gold. This ended when Nixon closed the gold window when he refused to raise interest rates as there started to be a run on gold as countries rushed to convert. The backdrop was that high spending on the Vietnam was and new social programs was driving inflation, but Nixon knew that would cause an economic slowdown he wasn't willing to do. Jimmy Carter then took a lot of the political flack for allowing the central bank to raise rates to kill it. This is why central bank independence is so important.

During times of geopolitical risk, countries would physically move their gold to be held in trust in friendly and/or rule of law countries. The USA was seen as this between ~1914-now.