Doesn't this basically justify why they have qualms? To not seek to repatriate in this circumstance would seem politically unwise, if you value the gold.

If of course it's just a bargaining tool, you would think there is a quit pro quo.

Whilst the impact of a refusal to repatriate would be high remember the gold is probably not performing very much of a role, beyond a defensive one, and is nothing like the whole of their stocks. And the cost to US standing in enacting a refusal to NATO allies would be significant: You would expect future gold deposits to seek safer harbours for one, and the retention of the dollar as a hedge currency would be called into even more question.

In any case, it's a matter for law. On what grounds could the US refuse?

>And the cost to US standing in enacting a refusal to NATO allies would be significant:

yeah, I mean, this administration really doesn't seem to mind taking on significant costs - to the country I mean. I don't think the administration likes the idea of bearing significant costs themselves.

I wouldn't expect the US to care too much about things like "NATO allies" with a head of state that expressed repeated desire to leave NATO.

> On what grounds could the US refuse?

"You need our trade more than we need your trade" is a very useful property to have when it comes to international law. Putting people you don't like on sanction lists, like people investigating your ally's war crimes, also seems to work pretty well. When push comes to shove, there's always "we have more guns than you", though American diplomatic action generally prefers to overthrow governments and install new, more US-aligned leadership as a head of state.

If it's a matter of law, you need someone to enforce that law.

If your friend goes to an ATM for $20 and their bank fines them with a large percentage fee on their income; are you likely to also choose this bank?

You assume you are trying to run the bank profitable. But maybe you are just a very good friend, of another bank, that wants to see your bank bankrupt?

If I go to any bank to withdraw $50000 in cash, they won't let me either.

You just need to give advance warning, and perhaps pick up the cash at a big branch where the bank has good security.

This isn't difficult.

Getting this gold is not difficult either, on the state scale of difficulty. It's just not that easy like your uber eats delivery.

Surely gold is different from just account balance right ? They promised to actually keep those gold in the vault, and not spend the gold and keep only the equivalent in bank notes.

You just discovered the concept of natural monopoly

The US might literally just not give it to them. Germany has been trying to ask for their gold back for a while IIRC and they generally get an explanation that paraphrases to it being a very complex operation to pull off and they should come back next year.

The US has enough leverage over Germany that the Nord Stream incident is still an unsolved mystery where everyone just moved on. Probably the Russians did it. That's a lot of leverage.

The official line in Germany is actually that Ukraine most probably did it: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/nordstream-17... https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/nord-stream-s... https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...

Knowledge or agreement by Selensky is unclear, but there seem to be hints. Poland might have been complicit or at least turned a blind eye and seems to have let a wanted suspect escape to Ukraine.

From purely incentive based analysis I would bet on Ukraine/Poland as well. I am Polish and the news was received very warmly here by both citizens and government officials.

The news of the Nordstream bombings was received warmly in most of Central and Eastern Europe, not just Poland. The men and women who carried out the operation are heroes.

I don’t think that’s true. I know people in many Eastern European countries and the general opinion was dismay at a US proxy stoking war.

Even if someone else did it other than the obvious culprit, it could not have been done without US blessing and assistance.

Politics dictated this official line just like the previous official line of "Russia did it".

People struggle with uncertainty so much that any magical thinking they can come up with will do… we simply don’t know the truth on this at all.

Only those who don't want to see certain things and mirror the Russian propaganda line ("we will never know the truth"). This case is pretty thoroughly investigated, down to the names, timelines, and interviews with people who did this.

Okay, you’re making some claims here, I’m not saying you’re wrong but could you provide some high quality references that contain proof of this?

What's high quality to you? I personally don't consider WaPo, WSJ, and alikes high quality in this case as their investigations are mostly summaries of authorities claims/leaks and OSINT types' findings with little to add, but here you are. [1][2][3] I don't save everything about this, there's a ton more detail floating around, nearly on the same level as MH17.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/11/...

[2] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nord-stream-wie-e...

[3] https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...

I thought this has been attributed to pro russian Ukrainians on the far right?

Or US/Norwegian forces covered by NATO exercises.

We do know know, there are so many people who would have loved to see Nord Stream blown up.

Our foreign minister for example in Poland, thanked USA for doing so :P I for example I'm happy NS2 got blown up, as it means relative safety for us. Germans won't be able to just go on about their business with Russia in the future.

Of course, that was supposed to be - we do not know, not this.

Sorry, that's what I get for writing w/o thinking and I can't edit it now.

And what would be the reason in this theory?

There are two boats that are under primary suspicion. One Russian salvage ship named SS-750 that carries a mini-submarine, which circled around for no apparent reason in the vicinity of the explosion area 4 days before the explosion. Then there is another boat, a 50-foot (15.4m) sailing yacht named Andromeda, was reportedly near the site of two of the three explosions in the days before they occurred. Traces of military explosives were found on Andromeda.

The Andromeda ship was operated by an Ukrainian national, and rented by a company from Uzbekistan, the owner of which holds a Russian and a Ukrainian passport which resident is located in the annexed Crimea.

In addition there are around 5 more ships that have been in the area.

There have been and still are multiple investigations. Sweden and Denmark dropped the cases citing lack of jurisdiction/basis to continue investigation. Germany issued an arrest warrant toward suspected operators of the Andromeda ship.

There was an alleged leaked Dutch intelligence report that implicated Ukrainians that was given to the The Washington Post, but military analysts from Sweden and Denmark has expressed strong doubts of the practicality of an 15.4-metre sailing boat to do a 80 meter technical dive using a crew of 6 to plant that much explosives (over 500kg) and at 3 different sites. As such they has described the Andromeda theory as a distraction and false flag.

A consortium of investigative journalists investigated and attributed the attacks the Ukraine's secret service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

They introduced new tax on remittance already. Germany would never dare to anger USA anyway

Gonna be real rough when every country stops buying US debt.