Gold Surging Past $5,000 in 2026: De-Dollarization & Risks of War

Gold has surged past $5,000 per ounce in 2026, hitting highs above $5,600 in January. What is driving this dramatic rally—and what does it signal for global trade and financial global order?

Justin Hayden Miller breaks down the key forces behind gold's explosive move, including surging safe-haven demand, central bank purchases, and growing discussions around de-dollarization. The episode examines renewed calls in Germany, Poland, and Italy to repatriate gold reserves from US vaults—prompted by geopolitical strains in transatlantic relations under the second Trump administration and concerns over asset risks.

Drawing on historical patterns of gold accumulation and movements ahead of major conflicts, the discussion explores whether these developments indicate eroding trust in the dollar as the dominant reserve currency and potential fractures in global alliances.

Key subjects covered:

• Germany's push to bring home gold held in the US
• Broader European repatriation debates and trust issues
• Historical precedents of gold hoarding before military conflicts
• The paradox of gold's heightened role in today's free-floating market versus the classical gold standard era
• BRICS nations' hedging against sanctions/trade pressures
• Implications for dollar dominance, global trade finance, supply chains, and multipolar alliances.

Essential listening for business leaders, policymakers, investors, and analysts monitoring geopolitics, reserve currencies, and international trade dynamics.

Keywords : gold price 2026, $XAUUSD, gold $5000, de-dollarization, gold repatriation Germany, dollar reserve currency, geopolitics gold, central bank gold, US Europe relations Trump, global trade risks, gold surge 2026.

Micro-clip of Marco Rubio leaving for Munich Security Summit: C-Span

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Transcript

Intro: Gold's $5,000+ surge and core questions

Justin Hayden Miller 0:00

In this episode, I want to talk about gold and its skyrocketing price. Will it topple the dollar from being the world's premium reserve currency? And could it even indicate impending major war? Stay around to find out. I'm Justin Hayden Miller. Welcome to Global Trade Deciphered. Deciphering the policies, trends, and geopolitics reshaping global trade. Germany holds the world's second largest official gold reserve, totaling nearly three and a half thousand tons of the stuff. And nearly forty percent of it, of those huge reserves, are physically held in the US. But since February 2026, several prominent German economists and politicians are actively urging Germany to repatriate its gold reserves from the US back to Germany to bring its gold back home. Why? Well, as with nearly everything nowadays, it's because of geopolitics. What else? Because of risks and strains because of US EU relations under the second Trump administration, particularly because of the US, is being said to become ever increasingly unpredictable. Like rumors flying around that the US might invade a NATO country. The level of blind trust that Europe had in the US is not so quite as strong as it was. In January 2026, in an interview with the German financial newspaper Handelsblatt, Immanuel Munch, co-director of the Center for Central Banking at the Frankfurt School of Finance, said, Given the current geopolitical situation, it seems risky to store so much gold in the US. In the interest of greater strategic independence from the US, the Bundesbank would therefore be well advised to consider repatriating the gold. Poland is pulling back as well from stocking gold in the US and even in the UK. And in an interview he gave in February 2026, Michael Jagger, head of the European Taxpayers' Association, said, We are of the opinion that it is high time to bring the German gold back from the USA. You see, Jagger's highlighted that trust in the US has been badly damaged by Trump's policies, including potential pressure on the Fed amongst amid high US debt interest payments. And he described the risk as high that the whole US debt crisis could go purr-shaped. You know, even Elon Musk has been shouting this out for the past year or so. I believe that's the reason why he left the US administration. The big, beautiful bill. But actors in Italy are also mirroring Germany's position with politicians pushing for bringing their gold back from the US because of similar concerns. Yeah, you know, it it's feared that the US could pull another Maddy. Gold could become a bargaining chip in international disputes, or be the subject of retaliatory measures during trade disagreements, as it's the case already with tariffs. Yeah, the US has already leveraged tariffs to I wouldn't say a max, but you know, quite high on the scale. And they're thinking, well, why not the unthinkable with gold? They're thinking that it might not be Zelensky in the Oval Office with President Trump saying you don't have the cards. They fear that it may even be the German Chancellor in the Oval Office, with the US President telling him you don't have the gold. It's here at Fort Knox. And with massive increases in the value of gold at present, this just increases the importance of the matter and is seen as multiplying the risk. All this is not good news. Global trade and the financial systems that it feeds off are based on trust. And what's happening with gold is a signal that trust between nations is withering. So I was thinking that it is like the US and Europe having lived apart some time, but have shared the same bed for years. But after a spiff between the two just after New Year, it seemed that the US might go round to her place and appropriate the green patio as its own, digging bits up of it and building on it. And the neighbors and common friends have said this is completely out of order. And eventually he backed down, saying he never really planned to do it in the first place. She nevertheless wants her gold jewelry back that she left in his safe at his place. Just in case. But seriously, when countries start moving large amounts of physical gold around the place, or like Germany beginning to start talking of plans to do so and to bring it back, even if it's not the official position of the German government, history has shown us on multiple occasions that it's often a warning sign that a major war may well be on the cards. And history gives us lots of examples. Pre-World War I. The gold accumulation started in 1906 and continued to 1914. France and Germany built up huge gold reserves. France nearly doubled its holdings, and Germany almost doubled theirs. They saw gold as essential for funding war efforts and an arms race. Then you've got pre-World War II with accumulation of gold in the 30s, amidst rising threats from fascism in Europe. I mean, the US even built Fort Knox for the purpose in the period. I think it was completed in 1936. And by the end of the 30s, the US had over 14,000 tons of it. Poland's gold reserve was moved in the late 1930s because of concerns of war. When the Nazis went into Austria, the first thing they did was to grab the gold reserves. Now you're saying, well, Justin, this is the 20th century, fair enough, but it's not in every century that there, you know, the two world wars. So you want me to go further back? Okay. France built large gold reserves under Napoleon III, just prior to the Franco-Prussi War. I'll I'll go back further. Prior to the Napoleonic Wars, Britain accumulated and protected gold reserves fearing revolutionary France. The list goes on and on and on. Hoarding gold premises major wars. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there'll definitively be one. I'm not saying that World War III is just about to break out. What I am saying is that it's a warning. A canary in the coal mine. Yeah, I'm saying wake up. Prick your damned ears up. Everyone needs to calm down. Now, gold's price has exploded recently, as you you all know. I got the figures out just before recording this. It closed around $1,900 an ounce in 2020. It dipped slightly in 2021 to 22, to around 1,800, and then it climbed and climbed and climbed and is climbing to 2,000, well over just over $2,000 in 2023, a whopping $4,300 odd announced by the end of 2025. That's 65% up on the year. In January 2026, it hit it went over 5,500. That's a 73% jump from early 2025. It went down 3% a couple of days ago, last week. I said potentially because of mixed US economic signals, but it's it's volatile. But even though it's volatile, the trend is up. Now, I've realized that many of the issues that I discuss in this podcast involve a paradox. I haven't always mentioned it. When I'm thinking about doing an episode, I tend to jot a few ideas down. I've meant to mention some of these, and but I'm gonna I'm not gonna forget this time. I I see a lot of paradoxes in some of the elements that we talk about. And they're not any old, just any old paradoxes, but massive ones. And therefore, I'm going to introduce a new feature in my episodes called the paradox bomb. And lo and behold, we have one coming up. Because certainly, under the classical gold standard, gold was central to the monetary system. Everything was pegged to gold, including currencies. Boiled down to a type of price fixing, quite honestly, fixing the value of a currency based on the amount of gold held by the country printing the money. And because the gold standard no longer generally applies, we might think that as a consequence, gold's less significant. You know, the price might be very high at the moment, but we might think it was a lot more important at the beginning of the 20th century the the height of the gold standard. But wait for the paradox bomb. Gold was surely very important during the gold standard, but it has an equal or even higher importance now. Boom. Because during the gold standard, gold was pegged to currencies. It was generally in the interests of central banks to defend those fixed parities, the fixed price. And you know, in the US, whatever, that that's why its price was fixed at $35 an ounce. Gold is a free agent now. Its lid has been taken off. It's a bit like a a Pandora's box and we we've opened the lid. And you know, in its free, largely unregulated market today where demand is increasing, increasing, and the the price is just going through the ceiling. Seventh heaven. To seismic levels, because it's a safe haven, what's perceived to be a safe haven. It's also a hedge against inflation. People, countries, and everyone buy it to secure value in inflationary times. And this is seen by some as a preparation for countermeasures against the dollar's dominance as the world's safe currency, backing a gold-backed trade system to counter US dominance. Even a couple of years ago, I thought this was just a little bit exaggerated. Certainly the dollar's lost power and value, but to my mind, it has and remains the safest of the currencies. It has lost an element, but nevertheless other currencies, proportionally, have lost even more, and therefore the dollar remains on top. And certainly I've considered that the dollar would maintain that position. The situation though is that if the US is breaking ties with its traditional alliances, then this could change potentially the equation, or that's my fear. It depends on how you calculate it, but the EU and the UK economies combined represent some 25% plus of the world economy. Very sizable proportion. The US cannot disregard how an economy so important, whether it has structural issues or not, regards the US. The economies, Europe and the United States, are so intertwined, there's a mutual dependence. If gold signals problems a sign of pressure on the dollar's predominance, then it would be because the US dollar's dominance relies on trust. It's the go-to for global reserve because it's seen as safe and neutral, dependable, much like the US has been seen. They go hand in hand. If that trust is diminished, if we're now in a world where assets held in other countries and other jurisdictions can be frozen or used against the title holder, the owner, if if not confiscated because of geopolitical tensions, disputes, trade issues, you name it, then that erodes trust or completely kills it. We've seen Russian assets frozen after the Russia-Ukraine conflict. $300 billion? Nobody wants to find themselves in the same situation. Don't see it as paranoia, right? Paranoia is an unjustified fear of something, and they feel, believe, that recent events entirely justify their fears and calls, and therefore the call by some to repatriate those assets, whatever they are, investments, cash, and gold. Gold steps in as the perfect alternative to a reserve currency. It can't be frozen in exactly the same way as cash, stocks or bonds can be, you know, unless you seize it, unless you nick it, which is the fear. Add on to that that certain countries have an inherent political motive to secure dedollarization. They didn't manage to do it. So they're jumping on the gold bandwagon. The BRICS nations, the emerging economies consisting of China, India, Russia, are apparently accumulating physical gold as a hedge against US sanctions and trade wars. What's all this got to do with global trade? Everything. Everything. Global trade has two fundamentals trust in the finance system to be paid for goods that are exported and supplied. Two, the currency in which these goods are traded. You want to be paid in a trusted currency to ensure that you're paid the value of the sale price. So you can see that all these issues interplay and are interdependent. Geopolitics, gold prices, de-dollarization, global trade, countries organizing the repatriation of their gold is very, very, very similar to almost you know, pulling all your money out of a bank. If too many countries are doing this, I see the parallel to a run-on-the-bank situation. Banks operate on trust. When people take all their money out of a bank, they've lost trust in the bank. And I think that there could be similarities with gold in the present set of circumstances. And we need to stay calm and we need to keep our heads on and we need to maintain trust between economies and between nations and certainly between allies. The case where Europe and the US lose trust in each other, that is where I see a potential tipping point. And even a tipping point on the dollar. So I'm a lot more optimistic that the dollar will maintain its dominance. I mean it has for the past sixty years. It's avoidable that the dollar loses predominance. And my view is that that has been thankful to close allied relations, among other reasons, and that cooperation between the US and Europe, the UK included, is not just a question of mutual interest, but you know, continued mutual dominance. I don't like, you know, extending analogies uh too far. It gets boring, can sound a little bit corny, but some couples stay married because it's just too costly to divorce. And I believe that's the case for Europe and the United States. Mum and dad have to set aside their differences and get on with each other for the children. Because if the situation continues as it's started, and there are consequences for dedollarization, then this is gonna have big, you know, important consequences. It's a global trade podcast, so we might as well talk about global trade. It's gonna it's gonna affect supply chains, it's gonna create regional fragmentation as I see it. I see it raising costs of logistics and greater costs and greater risks generally of trade. It will also push countries to create trade hubs. That's precisely what I was talking about in my last episode concerning Kearney. That's that's what how Kearney sees it. He sees uh as I mentioned, uh Kearney, in my opinion, sees you know the world becoming a multipolar mesh of overlapping alliances, uh, according to specific objectives on specific issues, a federalization of alliances, as I said. The US Department of State released a document only last week publishing remarks that Marco Rubio said to the press that the the US Secretary of State. He said:

Marco Rubio 18:17

I think it's in a defining moment, and I'm referring back to even the speech on the statement I begin during my nomination during the second period saying the world is changing the link. The world of the world is the man who might be the world of the live in a new member in the ship of multiple. And it's been a little more than the most likely one of the conversations and many of our minds, and um we need to continue to have those conversations.

Justin Hayden Miller 18:51

Sounds very similar to what Mark Carney was saying only last month. The old order's gone. Get used to it. You know, we're living in a new world. We all need to decide what our new role is. Have you ever seen the the classic James Bond movie, Goldfinger? Yeah. Ulrich Goldfinger uh devised Operation Grand Slam. He planned to irradiate the US bullion depository at Fort Knox with a dirty bomb. That way, by eradicating all US gold, it was going to skyrocket the price of gold, so his own gold shot through the roof. To cement Goldfinger's dominance of on gold in the global gold market. If you think about it, Goldfinger's objective was one to cripple the US economy and international monetary stability. Two cause global financial chaos. And three to massively inflate the market price of gold, making him the richest man in the history of the world. You know, like Elon Musk levels. But the objective of the BRICS? To diminish US global dominance. There's a really iconic moment in the film where Shirley Eaton, she's murdered, found naked on a bed, entirely painted in gold. James Bond explained that the cause of death was skin suffocation. I'm not- I'm not sure it could actually kill anyone. I think they got that wrong in the in the movie. Gold's not inherently poisonous. Pure gold is one of the least toxic metals known. Until it comes to geopolitics. Thanks for having listened to the podcast. The content of this podcast is intended only to provide an information resource of interest and does not constitute legal, tax, business, or financial advice of any kind. Should you require advice, then you should engage an appropriately qualified person to provide you specific advisory services in the field. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views, thoughts, or opinions of any law firm, nor that of any third party, other person, company, or organization. Stay tuned for the next episode.