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Customs duties: Gold flies to New York: new blow for Switzerland
The price of gold has reached heights in recent days in New York, leaving Switzerland worried about the new taxes on its ingots.
This year, the course of gold also benefited from its status of refuge value in the face of commercial and geopolitical uncertainties.
AFPThe price of gold reached a new record Friday in New York, investors worrying about seeing certain ingots finally affected by the customs duties imposed by President Donald Trump.
According to an update of American customs, detailed in a document dated July 31 but made public on Friday, the golden ingots of one kilogram and those of 100 ounces are classified as subject to customs duties.
The market, which expected that the ingots are on the contrary exempt from American surcharge, expressed “its shock and its confusion,” noted Han Tan, analyst at Nemo.Money, interviewed by AFP.
After the dissemination of the information, initially reported Thursday by the Financial Times, the price of gold (for delivery in December) on the New York raw material stock exchange, the COMEX, reached a summit of 3534.10 dollars perce (31.1 g).
Around 6 p.m. GMT, he fell, however, and only appeared at 3,461.40 dollars around 6:30 p.m. GMT. This dive followed a start -up of the White House, which said that it was planning to “publish a decree in the near future to clarify the erroneous information concerning the taxation of gold bars and other specialized products”, according to the declarations of an official to AFP. However, the latter did not say if it implied that the ingots would remain exempt.
A refuge value
The gold demand-and with it its course-had exploded earlier this year across the Atlantic, American buyers seeking to accumulate stocks in forecasts of possible surcharge on this metal, so far spared by the customs offensive of Donald Trump.
This year, the course of gold also benefited from its status of refuge value in the face of commercial and geopolitical uncertainties, and a weakening of the dollar, also considered as a safe asset.
For Switzerland, a high place in gold refining, a taxation of gold would represent a new blow, when the country was inflicted Thursday of heavy surcharge of 39% on its products entering the United States.
Investors have so far held for granted that gold was exempt, as well as pharmaceutical products which are under the threat of a separate surcharge.