The Dutch central bank has relocated 86 metric tonnes of gold worth billions of dollars from the U.S. and Canada to the Bank of England, citing “geopolitical unrest” and the need to strengthen its “crisis preparedness”.

Amid an ongoing war the U.S. launched against Iran and another tariff dispute between Washington and Toronto, the Netherlands was preparing for the worst to avoid getting caught in the crosshairs.

“With this step, we have improved the deployability of the gold reserves. We assume that we will never need to deploy the gold, but it is nevertheless necessary to strengthen our resilience and preparedness,” said De Nederlandsche Bank’s president, Olaf Sleijpen.

DNB said its precious metal held in the UK would be easily tradable in an emergency.

“This makes it the quickest for DNB to deploy in a crisis situation,” DNB said in a statement on Wednesday.

From a combined 313 metric tonnes held in New York (31.3 per cent) and Ottawa (19.7 per cent), DNB moved 86 metric tonnes, reducing its gold in both countries to 18.5 per cent each. The share of gold held in the Bank of England rose from 18.1 per cent to 32.1 per cent.

Some of the precious metal was sold and “physically transferred” from the two countries to England between March and August.

“By combining buying and selling and physical transport, the risks associated with physically moving a large quantity of gold have been spread,” DNB said.

DNB owns 612.4 metric tonnes of gold worth about $83.6 billion at the end of 2025, the bank said in a statement.