One of the details from Friday’s report on the shrinking trade deficit during the month of December was that gold exports played an important role in narrowing the gap. More than 20 tonnes of the stuff, worth roughly $1.2 trillion, left our shores, most likely headed for Asia. Based on the data below from the St. Louis Fed, there isn’t anything particularly new about this, it’s just not something that I’ve ever thought about.

Of course, many people think that an even larger amount of monetary gold (i.e., metal held as reserve assets by the government and/or central bank) leaves the U.S. every month as part of a gold leasing program related to the nation’s official gold reserves of 8,134 tonnes. Just as an interesting point of reference, if the official gold reserves of the U.S. were being leased out at the same 20 tonnes per month rate as nonmonetary gold, it would take about 33 years to deplete the entire U.S. gold stockpile.