Is Donald Trump preparing a major manipulation of the dollar? The president of the United States has planned a visit to Fort Knox, fueling speculation. The Kentucky bunker is where the US's $425-billion gold reserve is stored. "I'm going to go with Elon. Because we want to see if the gold is still there (...) Wouldn't that be terrible if we opened it up and there was no gold there?" said Trump on February 20. The only president to visit Fort Knox was Franklin Roosevelt in 1943. That was during World War II.

The US president's activism, rarely without purpose, suggests an increasing reverence for gold. While this does not signal a return to the gold standard, which prevailed in the US between 1900 and 1933, when the value of the currency was directly linked to a fixed quantity of gold, it could be a precursor to a currency war.

For the moment, the situation is relatively calm. With the euro at $1.04, the dollar is relatively stable, a far cry from the yo-yos of the past which saw the euro hit a low of $0.82 in October 2000 and a high of $1.60 in July 2008, just before the financial crisis. But the soaring price of gold – traditionally the ultimate safe-haven asset – has surged 57% over the past two years and 9% since the start of the year, reflecting growing concern about Trump's intentions.

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