Name: Is investor speculation in gold causing a sugar rush? | The Dip Podcast
Uploaded: 2026-01-30T16:59:47.000Z
Duration: 9 min 39 s
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Gold has been on a tear recently, hitting a new high of $5,500 per ounce, which means that the value of gold has more than doubled over the last two years.

Yeah, and it all kicked off with that 4,000 mark that it hit last year.

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And that was a big record scratch moment because before then it felt like, you know, gold is a safe haven amid geopolitical and economic turmoil.

But then analysts started saying it's acting a bit more like speculation.

Like if people put money on bitcoin, expecting, or let's say speculating on price jumps right in the way of.

And that's all related to US President Donald Trump cutting trade ties and throwing up tariffs on countries around the world.

There's a lot of chatter around gold right now.

So for more, we're joined by Emily Leshner from DW Business.

Emily, let's talk about these wild gold prices we're seeing right now.

Another thing that happened during the last big increase that Daniel was just talking about was that the US Government was shut down and there's another shutdown being talked about right now.

I mean, well, you can't really draw a straight line from one to the other, but

definitely that the pending, the possibility of a US Government shutdown, it definitely contributes to a growing sense of geopolitical and economic instability right now.

And that instability and that uncertainty that comes with it is what is really driving the price of gold at the moment.

And if you, if you look back historically, the price of gold hasn't always risen during the time of a US Government shutdown.

It did last year in October and has been rising consistently since.

But if you look back, for example, at 2013, the shutdown during President Barack Obama's administration, there wasn't a steady increase in gold prices.

Also during the 2018 government shutdown during Trump's first term, gold prices went up slightly, but

So you can say that this uncertainty is certainly driving up the price of gold, but

And so, Emily, we've seen a lot of back and forth with Donald Trump lately, you know, putting threats on Greenland and then taking them off.

you know, at some point there was even the, a question mark of a military intervention which Trump then squashed at Davos.

So has this also had a knock on effect on the gold price as well or has it held back a little bit from that?

I mean, there has been a consistent trend in the gold price going up.

When Trump said that he and the EU had found a framework agreement over Greenland at Davos, the markets did trim some of the games on gold.

But analysts say that it's not enough to throw off the trend.

one of the reasons that we're talking to you about gold today, because it's not just this wave of gold price increases that we want to talk about, but

also you've been looking at, apparently Germany want right now storing its gold in the US but talking about maybe repatriating it.

How did so much German gold end up in the U.S.

yeah, after World War II, until around the 1970s, West Germany experienced an economic boom, and

that was largely because of the success of its car and machinery sectors.

So West Germany accumulated a trade surplus with the US they converted it into a safe asset, and

they kept it in the US and there were really strong concerns at the time that the Soviet Union would invade West Germany and take its gold reserves.

And that's much like the Nazis took Italy's gold reserves during World War II, 119 ton of it from the bank of Italy and moved it to Berlin.

But 37% of these of its total gold reserves are in New York.

It's now worth an estimated 162 billion euros, which is a nice chunk of change.

But that gold has always stayed there in the US Because Germany has, has had up and perhaps up until this point, a very trusting relationship with the US and it was seen to be much safer to keep it there than to keep it over here in Europe.

But over the years, Germany has tried to repatriate or has repatriated some of its gold back.

From Paris three years ahead of schedule.

It also brought back some of the gold from New York during 20.

Between the years of 2013 and 2016, it brought back around 300 tons of it, but

there are still about 1200 tons that remain in New York.

So, Emily, why are we now seeing this talk of repatriating the gold back to Germany?

Because, of course, they still have a claim on it.

So why actually take the risk of putting it on a ship which could theoretically sink?

I don't know if they're going to fly it or how are they going to do it.

But, yeah, there's a risk involved in that.

There is a risk, and that's why a lot of critics are saying that it shouldn't be done.

I mean, it's very typical central banks to have gold reserves.

Has the second largest gold reserves after the US the third country is Italy.

So there aren't real calls to bring it back at the moment.

There are a lot of difficulties in bringing it back.

So it's not as simple as some of those who want to repatriate it might make it seem.

And, Emily, this isn't the first time that Germany's wanted his gold back.

So I'm wondering, is this related to the Trump tariffs or threats of tariffs or freight relations in general?

I mean, I'd say maybe it's a bit of both.

It's tied pretty solidly to the unpredictability of the Trump administration.

And this is pretty evident in those who have been calling, in what people have been in those who have been calling for the gold, what they've been saying.

So if you just take a look at some of those voices.

He's a former head of research at the Bundesbank and an economist.

And when he was making the call to repatriate the gold, he.

He was talking about how it'd be necessary for greater strategic independence from the US So in that sense.

That is very much tied to freight relations.

She's a finance spokesperson for the Green Party, and

she said that Germany cannot become a pawn in a geopolitical dispute.

So there again, she is alluding to the unpredictability of Trump.

Maybe he would, you know, use the gold as leverage in some way.

He's the head of the European Taxpayers association as well as the association of German Taxpayers.

And he said that Trump is just unpredictable.

And so he says that's why Germany's gold is no longer safe in US Vaults.

So I think that those, you know, those three kind of examples, they all represent, you know, different.

They represent different parties on the political spectrum or different sides on the political spectrum, and

So the tariffs are certainly a part of it, the freight relations much bigger.

And this all matches with what European leaders were saying at Davos this year, because they were essentially talking about European sovereignty and how Europe needs to do more to stand up on all kinds of levels, not just when it comes to defense, but

also when it comes to business and industry and all of these kinds of things, too.