Scott Bessent shares the truth about American gold and dollars

Fort Knox has been a root of fascination for Americans for generations. The vault, built successful 1936 adjacent to the U.S. Army station successful Fort Knox, Kentucky, presently holds 147.3 cardinal ounces of gold, astir 59% of full U.S. golden reserves, according to the U.S. Mint. The remainder is stored astatine the West Point Bullion Depository, the Denver Mint, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Fort Knox doesn't let visitors and has removed lone tiny quantities of bullion for purity investigating during audits. That constricted entree has fueled decades of speculation astir whether the golden is really inactive there.

So erstwhile Fox News big Jesse Watters asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent straight whether the golden was inactive there, the reply got attention. "The treasurer has been to Fort Knox, and I'm blessed to accidental each golden is contiguous and accounted for," Bessent said. Bessent himself has not visited Fort Knox, but U.S. Treasurer Brendan Beach has, helium said. What came adjacent is the portion worthy paying person attraction to.

What Scott Bessent said astir gold, dollars, and fiat currency

Watters had framed displays of older U.S. currencies hanging connected the partition down him, and Bessent utilized them to explicate thing astir Americans don't deliberation overmuch about.

"We utilized to person metallic certificates. We utilized to beryllium backed by silver, sometimes gold. And past successful the '70s, we conscionable went to what was called fiat currency, wherever you didn't person to support golden oregon metallic successful the vault," helium said.

Related: Bank of America's latest golden outlook sends a antithetic signal

He besides confirmed the U.S. is inactive receiving golden from Venezuela. "We are getting a batch from Venezuela. We are getting gold," Bessent said. And connected the question of however overmuch the state holds overall: "The U.S. has the largest heap of golden successful the world, implicit $1 trillion astatine existent marketplace value."

How the dollar mislaid its nexus to golden and what it means today

The strategy Bessent described arsenic "the '70s" has a precise commencement date. In August 1971, President Richard Nixon closed what was known arsenic the golden window. Before that, overseas governments could manus the United States dollars and person golden successful instrumentality astatine a fixed complaint of $35 an ounce.

That arrangement, portion of the Bretton Woods monetary system, gave the dollar its presumption arsenic the world's reserve currency successful the decades pursuing World War II.

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