Gold and silver are being moved to New York and China from London, a process known as repatriation. This shift is not just due to tariffs but other undisclosed reasons. Despite claims of logistical challenges, there seems to be a shortage of physical metal. This trend suggests that London may no longer be the central storage for gold and silver in the future.
The old system of controlling gold prices is no longer effective as trust in it is decreasing and people are taking their gold back home. This shift is causing a lot of gold to leave the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), more than what is caused by tariffs. This situation reveals a deeper problem in the system, especially in a time when gold is in high demand. Despite the risk of gold and silver prices dropping, they are not expected to return to London soon.

Gold and silver are being pulled into New York for reasons beyond tariffs, we believe. Days ago, we stated this plainly, calling it repatriation. We described it as a new straw now drawing metal from the LBMA, just as another has been siphoning gold and silver towards China through Switzerland for the past three years. Welcome to the Morning Markets and Metals with Vince Lancey, where each morning Vince brings you the financial and precious metals news to get you ready for your day. And now, here’s Vince. Good morning. I’m Vince Lancey. This is the Morning Market rundown.

You can see the markets on the right there. The Friday edition will be a little bit different this morning. Making American gold great again. Given the events that have unfolded and will unfold this weekend, potentially we thought this was more important to discuss. Gold and silver are being pulled into New York for reasons beyond tariffs, we believe. Days ago, we stated this plainly, calling it repatriation. We described it as a new straw now drawing metal from the LBMA, just as another has been siphoning gold and silver towards China through Switzerland for the past three years.

Yesterday afternoon, Zero Hedge published a premium post examining the same issue while they avoided the actual term repatriation. They directly questioned why gold is moving to COMEX, concluding tariffs alone don’t explain it. I’m quoting them. Their analysis highlighted contradictory statements from officials and press agents managing their narrative. That post starts by establishing the official message bringers and spin doctors are not playing fair. Quote, there was an interesting article overnight in the otherwise conservative and establishmentarian financial times, perhaps best known over the past decade for religiously keeping its readers out of the best performing asset class of all time.

Bitcoin in particular and crypto in general, which have been relentlessly and constantly bashed with fanatical obsession by all of its now former FT. Alphaville writers whose track record of picking trades leaves Jim Cramer in the dust or inverted Jim Cramer. While normally the FT does not bother with reports about gold, it’s beneath them and certainly not global flows of gold. This time it made an exception. Officially, problems in metal delivery are blamed and downplayed on logistical challenges according to them and their establishment clients. Too much was being pulled too fast, they said.

Yet the same officials, as we noted, also cite liquidity issues, a lack of free floating gold and the need to borrow from central banks to meet deliveries. Logistics imply a temporary bottleneck. A shortage of physical metal is a deeper issue. Here is just one of the contradictions noted to that effect as itemized by Zero Hedge. The movement of gold needed to make its way into New York, that is basically what has been driving stockpiling, said Joe Cavatoni, marketing strategist at the World Gold Council, establishmentarian. That is leading a lot of people to say we want to get ahead of it and that is driving the futures market into a premium.

We believe that as well, but that’s not it. That’s not all there is. In fact, Cavatoni said in the very same article that the FT published that he was cautiously optimistic that the coming tariffs would most likely not apply to bullion. We are not putting a sense, we are not getting a sense, from the rhetoric, from the administration that it intends to go after the monetary metals. I believe that as well, quickly, to go after monetary metals is to go after money. That would upset a lot of global balance monetarily, especially with the BRICS pulling metal for their own use and for our use as well.

In fact, if they were to go after monetary metals, foolishly, but if they were, there would probably be, from my experience, carve-outs for banks. For certain industries, banks don’t have to worry about the tariff. Common folk do. It should not be a big problem. The point is, however, back to the main point that Zero Hedge is making and one that we have also made, what is the rush if the gold will not be tariffed then, Joseph? The fact of the matter is this has been going on for some time while the media ignored it and the bullion managers over in London hoped it would go away.

The contradiction above is one specific example of a reason why Goldfix believes tariffs are in part a good cover to accelerate what has already been happening at a slower pace going back to August of 2023 when the China premium began to assert itself and for the first time, China took delivery of gold from the U.S. And there it is. We reported in November that in October, as hinted at, believe it or not, a former FT Alfavel writer, interestingly enough, that China took delivery via a U.S. bullion bank to arbitrage the premium.

However, despite this, if you’re a wonk, put this in your side basket there, despite the delivery to China, the U.S. demand increased, probably to compensate for it. The bottom line is that gold is being repatriated to the USA. The chart below shows this. That is a chart that roughly mirrors how the EFP behaves. It is not the EFP itself. When the market is stable with a median of around zero, give or take, you’re showing a balance between COMEX demand and London physical demand. When it dips below zero, that chart means that someone is pulling metal to London and they need it.

Being that London is the bigger place, the bigger storage area, the metal in London being needed from the COMEX is common, but the fact that they would be pulling it from the COMEX means that they don’t have enough to satisfy demand themselves. However, it goes back and forth. But after COVID, during COVID, it started. But after COVID, right around where the orange lines go up, right around August 23, the EFP started to take a slow but definite, consistent upswing away from balance. This is gold being pulled from London to the U.S.

While gold in London is also being pulled from London to China, there is no EFP from London to China to give you that tell. The tell is the Goldman Sachs analysis that we shared with viewers, subscribers, showing that China’s demand is much bigger than it says. Back to my script here. Esteemed establishment publications like the FT have little to nothing to say on this matter that we’re showing you, choosing instead to focus on the Trump’s bad tariffs and evil ways as the reason for gold leaving. You see, they’re talking about this because they have a scapegoat to hang it on.

Trump is the reason this is happening. You see, Donald Trump is the cause of all the establishment’s problems, not the establishment itself. Now, Zero Hedge also brings up in their post something that we’ve described here, and we will have the links in this post as well. It goes on to empirically note, gold flows out of London to China have absolutely dwarfed flows to the U.S. China’s undisclosed purchases in the London OTC, readers are familiar with this chart from our work as well. Market hit an all-time high in late 2024 and continue to this day.

To be sure, it hasn’t been just in China. There has been a five-fold surge in central bank gold, and I’m quoting Zero Hedge here, resulting in gold hitting a record high price of 2800 yesterday. But while every central bank has been rushing into buy gold, nobody has been as aggressive as China. So if anyone really wants to find where all that physical London gold has gone, look to Switzerland, but most of all, look to China. Remember, the straw goes from London to Switzerland, from Switzerland it gets parked, maybe re-refined, and then to China.

China has been gobbling up every last ounce of physical it can find for reasons which are not entirely known, even if they are becoming clearer with every passing day. And if they aren’t, look at this chart we first published in May, and you can see central banks are the buyers, and it’s not just China’s central banks. Back to Zero Hedge, quoting again, but certainly don’t blame the U.S., which received far less, or about 200 to 400 tons of London gold for last year, for siphoning away the LBMA physical. Zero Hedge’s conclusion echoes our own.

Something bigger is happening regarding a repatriation timeline. Repatriation of gold started with Germany in 2017. Remember that? Migrated to China, they’re just buying and repatriating any gold they have via HSBC. Remember when HSBC pulled out of the U.S.? Well, they have China gold. China wanted their gold back, and also China continues to buy it. Then India pulling it out of London, and now the U.S.A. pulling it out of London as well. Everybody wants their bullion back in a tier one world where gold is given its proper due as money, and silver is also recognized for what it is, a monetary medal with critical industrial applications.

You want to make missiles? You will need silver. The inevitable conclusion is this, with regards to London, the London LBMA, not London itself, as a host, London host, the LBMA, we think about it, is on the path to no longer being a centralized depository for gold and silver bullion. The world has gone regional, mercantile, and de-globalized. The LBMA and the last vestiges of the London gold pool that cartel and manipulated prices are just a relic of a centralized model that is no longer effective or even potentially needed as everybody takes their bullion and goes home with it.

I’m taking my ball and I’m going home because I need my ball for the summertime. Trust, or what remains of it, is fast eroding everywhere. Put another way, the east-west divorce is final, and the assets are being divided. Circling back to where this all started with the mainstream media coverage, remember, Trump did it. If they bothered to do the math, they’d see the volume of gold leaving the LBMA exceeds tariff-driven demand. The rapid outflow has alarmed longstanding but muted critics of London’s gold pool, such as myself, long worried about potential double claims and co-mingling.

While double counting is unproven, similar double counting issues have serviced before, nickel being a recent example. Remember the bag of rocks while JP Morgan was being the victim. In the least case, if enough gold exists in London, the freely available portion of that gold appears to be much smaller than assumed. Whether tariffs are the immediate trigger or not, this trend exposes a deeper systemic issue. In an era of Basel III, de-globalization, every new demand for gold as tier one capital, the old model, where metal could always be leased and delivered, is breaking down irredeemably.

We once said, hence the picture, that Fort Knox, where it opened, might have nothing but moths and half-eaten IOUs inside of it. It’s quite possible with recent events or the acceleration of events for the past two years, those IOUs and the moths eating them are now being exported to London in return for the gold that we have parked over there for years. You cannot make America great again without gold and silver in this environment. And we want what is ours back like everyone else. Good luck this weekend. Addendum. Why it can’t be all tariffs will be included in the post as well in the premium section.

It simply cannot be all tariff based. We have the tariff logistics and how that goes through with a warning. Silver and gold could plummet on Monday, but the silver and gold aren’t going back to London anytime soon, we think. Have a great day. Well, thanks for watching this morning’s markets and metals with Vince Lancie. We sure appreciate you tuning in and starting your day with us here. Hope you enjoyed the show and we’ll see you again next week. Please note that this video is not intended as legal licensed financial trading advice and is to be used for informational purposes only.

Please contact your financial advisor before making any decisions and thanks for watching. [tr:trw].

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