It doesn't actually say what the new tariff rate will be, so the decision on whether to procure different sized bars / cast before shipping, and whether to recast in the US or just store / sell different sized bars in the US will ultimately just be a decision on whether all of that is cheaper than the new tariff. My guess is that at any significant volume, it'll be cheaper to recast.
So in other words, it matches the other damaging and/or stupid import taxes the federal government is imposing on Americans right now? :P
Perhaps the ulterior motive is to damage consumer gold markets in order to promote somebody's cryptocurrency?
It also might be malicious compliance by executive underlinings to soften the surprise.
But this is a rather big surprise to me. With the price of gold, I doubt only the very rich can afford these. Aren't those the people who Trump is trying to enrich. Or maybe the rich do not buy gold, or has another source.
I'm sure there are always some usual requests to insist on physical delivery of gold in the case of options. Example: https://www.ibkrguides.com/kb/en-us/phys-delivery-comex-meta...
Perhaps instead we should create aqua regia and dissolve copious amounts of gold, Fields Medals, and Nobel Prizes to be smuggled as, say, industrial waste. /s ;)
Reads to me as all gold bars getting tariff'd.
I suspect it doesn't exist yet. In fact, the majority of the US trade deficit with Switzerland is attributable to a very recent spike in gold imports. And my understanding is that in turn is a triangular arbitrage trade where physical gold has higher prices in the US, so 400-ounce bars of gold were getting exported from London to Switzerland to be recast, and then to the US.
This was never going to be a durable trade, since the arbitrage only existed due to an expectation of future tariffs on Gold. It probably also was a major contributor Switzerland having just been slapped by extremely punitive tariffs on actually productive sectors of the economy. Good riddance.
(Same goes for Putin and From Russia With Love)
ralferoo•6mo ago