How Much & Where Did The U.S. Export Most Of Its Gold Since 2011?

Since 2011, The United States exported the majority of its gold to only four countries. In the past five years, the U.S. exported a total of 1,961 metric tons (mt) of gold to these four countries which accounted for 68% of the total 2,876 mt.

As we can see in the chart, the top four received 1,961 mt or 63 million oz (Moz), of the total 2,876 mt (92.4 Moz). That’s a lot of gold. How much gold is this?  Well, if we go by the official estimates of Central Bank gold reserves, it’s quite a lot:

Official Gold Reserves Q4 2015

United States = 8,133 mt

Germany = 3,381 mt

U.S. Gold Exports 2011-2015 = 2,876 mt

IMF = 2,814 mt

Italy = 2,452 mt

France = 2,436 mt

China = 1,762 mt

Russia = 1,393 mt

Switzerland = 1,040 mt

The United States exported more gold in the past five years to rank it third in the official gold Central Bank holdings. While there is no way of knowing if some of these Central Banks hold all the gold they report or if others hold a great deal more than they report, this comparison shows just how much gold the U.S. exported from 2011 to 2015.

So, where did the majority of this gold go?  Since 2011, these four countries received the lion’s share of U.S. gold exports:

Hong Kong  & China received the most at 738 mt (23.7 Moz), followed by Switzerland at 588 mt (18.9 Moz), the U.K. at 503 mt (16.2 Moz) and lastly India at 132 mt (4.2 Moz). Furthermore, I would imagine the majority of U.S. gold exported to Switzerland and the U.K. were probably recasted into kilogram bars and shipped to the East.

This reminds me when Lyndon Johnson signed the Coinage Act in 1965. Once the Coinage Act went into force, the public removed the majority of silver coinage from circulation in a very short period of time. The same thing is happening with gold.

While the West prints money or digits to allow the U.S. Dollar based fiat monetary system to continue, the West’s gold heads east. Basically, the famous saying: