Trump Will Send Gold Soaring

I come to you with news of gold touching yet another record high—the 26th record so far this year.

The reason is troubling… which means it’s a reason you honestly, seriously, really need to make sure gold is part of your portfolio.

I say that knowing that too many people have skipped out on buying gold because they either don’t believe they need to own it, or they think the metal is now too expensive.

Let me be clear: The case for owning gold is as strong as ever—as the last 25 years of have proven.

And the metal is not too expensive, given that it’s going to see $10,000 before it ever sees $1,000 again.

As I write this from the basement of a hotel in Portland at the International Living Ultimate Go Overseas Bootcamp, gold has cracked past $3,500 per ounce. Some news items I’ve seen are now saying the metal could test $4,000 by the end of the year.

I say it might well test $5k, if certain events fall into place.

If not, well… $4k… $5k… it’s all the same in terms of the underlying story.

Moreover, $5k will arrive soon enough, as gold progresses toward five figures.

Which, I get, is a big, bold, shocking number: $10,000 gold!

It’s a crazy number. One of those out-of-left-field numbers that seems impossibly large—too large to really ever come true.

Then again, back in the day when I was telling readers to buy gold at $1,000, today’s prices seemed like they were pie-in-the-sky lunacy that only tinfoil hat cranks and addled gold bugs predicted.

Yet, here we are, with respected analysts and investment firms saying $4k gold is coming this year.

I’ve never questioned gold’s rise to unexpected levels.

Ever-higher gold prices were baked into America’s very unhealthy cake long ago. As with any cake, however, it takes time for the rise to happen.

Now to be perfectly honest, I didn’t necessarily expect the rise to be as speedy as we’ve seen recently.

That’s purely a function of the moment and the increasing fears spreading among global investors, as the Trump administration upends all norms to pursue an agenda rooted in what the original George Bush called “voodoo economics.”

Again, as I always do, I’ll say that this is not an attack on Trump. But Trump’s actions are what they are, and we have to address them in the context of what they mean or could possibly mean for our wallets.

The rest of the world—i.e. global investors—are not OK with what’s taking shape in America.

Lots of folks will say, “Who cares? Screw the rest of the world.”

Understandable.

But the rest of the world matters to the degree that the US is the world’s largest financial market. And if investors across the rest of the world are so concerned that they decide to pull money out of the US as a protective measure… well, that matters.

It hits US stocks, Treasury bonds, and the dollar.

And that, in turn, resonates in the gold market.

Gold is the purest form of financial safety—at this point, safer even than US Treasury bonds, which were long considered the safest investment in the world.

No more.

Gold is now the port-in-the-storm asset.

And the rest of the world right now sees dark storms amassing on America’s horizon.

Two issues (of many) that the world is worried about at the moment:

1. Trump firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner.
2. Trump firing one of the Federal Reserve board members.

Both raise concerning issues about data veracity and agency independence.

Data veracity is crucial to investing.

If you can’t trust the data, then you can’t make an informed investment decision. You start making those decisions by applying what is essentially a “fudge factor,” meaning you discount the data, which forces you to impose a discount on the asset you’re buying, just in case the data are wrong.

If, for instance, Walmart posted bad earnings, and then the CEO fired the CFO for undermining the retailer’s image (despite the truth), investors would rightly be worried that Walmart’s future earnings reports are not to be trusted, particularly if the CEO hired a sycophant as CFO (which Trump has effectively done in replacing the BLS pooh-bah).

As for firing a Federal Reserve member (on unproven claims of mortgage fraud), that’s a big no-no. The Fed is an independent body that is supposed to operate and exist outside the purview of political influence.

It has to.

It cannot be seen as beholden to political whims, because politicians have the economic wisdom of a wet mop. They want what’s best for their next re-election bid. To hell with any economic consequences… future politicians can deal with that.

In firing a Fed board member, Trump has bludgeoned the norm like an Eskimo bludgeoning a baby seal.

If the firing holds, investors’ century-long perception of Fed independence will die.

And if/when that happens… the world will begin to impose a huge discount on America, fearful that the Fed will no longer make decisions based on the data, but rather on Trump’s whims. And Trump is not a particularly astute economist. He’s a politician who wants low interest rates for self-serving reasons, regardless of the disastrous impacts low rates would have on an economy clearly progressing toward stagflation, assuming we’re not already there.

Investors will drive down the value of the dollar to protect themselves from numerous risks.

Which is precisely why gold has lurched past another all-time high.

The gold market is prepping for a possible disaster.

That’s the clear message.

It’s the only message, really.

Gold doesn’t rise in value for any reason other than fear.

Sure, the new Bureau of Labor Statistics dude might be on the up-and-up with the data. And Trump’s firing of the Fed official might be overturned by the courts.

And maybe all of this is a tempest in a thimble.

Then again, we’re in the ninth month of 2025, and gold has hit 26 record highs already. That’s fear.

Don’t ignore the message that gold is sending.