JOHANNESBURG—In April 2022, gold cost almost $1,950 per ounce. That price is now just short of $3,425, and Africa’s producers are scrambling to take advantage of a windfall propelled by market uncertainty, according to mineral market analysts.
The big producers, such as Ghana and South Africa, are selling the precious metal mostly to traders and investors in the United States who are putting their money into gold—a commodity that thrives during times of instability, economists said. They warned that the U.S. rush on gold is alienating other countries that are usually big investors in the metal.
Gold’s astronomical rise is also attracting organized crime groups, with more delving into the illicit trade than ever before, law enforcement officials said.
Gold’s record run began shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, traders said. U.S. tariffs—particularly the 145 percent tariffs on imports from China and U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs on other countries, followed by a 90-day suspension—fanned the flames of uncertainty, with the price of gold rising by the day.
The Trump administration has said the import duties, including a blanket 10 percent on goods and products coming into the United States, will reignite domestic manufacturing, create jobs for Americans, and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue.
Africans and their governments were disappointed and angered when Trump imposed tariffs of 30 percent to 50 percent on them.
However, the economic policies are proving to be a boon to Africa’s gold producers, putting billions of extra dollars into their coffers, trade analysts said.
“In times of market chaos and global uncertainty, investors run to a commodity that’s always a safe bet, and that’s gold,” South African minerals expert Peter Major told The Epoch Times.
Kanayo Awani, head of trade finance at the African Export-Import Bank, said gold is an asset that is frequently used to store wealth.
“Inflation across the world is eroding the real value of wealth,“ she told The Epoch Times. ”On the contrary, gold usually maintains and even increases in value over time. Gold has proven to be a stable and even an appreciating asset during high inflation.”
Sam Ankrah, a Ghanaian economist and investment strategist who is CEO of the Africa Investment Group, told The Epoch Times that a global trade war means that central banks around the world are investing in gold, trying to diversify their asset bases and reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar.
Currently, the main buyer of gold is the United States. Its “greed for gold” is disrupting global supply chains and freezing out other traditionally big buyers, mostly in Europe, Major said.
The United States has exempted minerals, including gold, from tariffs because they are essential to the United States’ national security and economic development.
Major said the United States is set to import record amounts of gold from South Africa in 2025.
“South Africa’s gold exports to America for the whole of 2024 were worth less than $700 million, so we’re on track towards unprecedented exports,” he said.
Trump has targeted South Africa in several executive orders since he reentered the White House on Jan. 20, accusing Pretoria of policies that discriminate against white citizens and of siding with the United States’ enemies.
He stopped annual financial aid of $440 million to the continent’s largest economy.
In January, the United States also imported gold from Canada ($1.1 billion), Switzerland ($575 million), Mexico ($414 million), and Australia ($404 million), the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.
Data provided by the WGC in late February indicated that more than 600 metric tons, or almost 20 million ounces of gold, has been transported into vaults at the Commodities Exchange Center (COMEX) in New York City since December 2024, with the main buyers being U.S. banks, investors, and traders.
The WGC said the United States has the largest national reserve of gold in the world by far, with 8,133.46 metric tons, followed by Germany (3,352), Italy (2,452), France (2,437), and China (3,000).
Richard Mubilu, mineral consultant and trade analyst at Pearl Precious Metals in Uganda, said that U.S. demand for gold means other countries that usually hold vast reserves of the precious metal, such as the UK and Switzerland, have seen their stocks dwindling.
Some in Europe have accused the United States of “draining” their gold reserves, and have suggested that the “hoarding” of the precious metal in New York City will cause a global shortage.
“As the market has been shifting inventories of gold from private London vaults to COMEX vaults, the availability of metal in private vaults in London has been declining,” he said.
Mubilu said other big buyers of African gold in 2024 were Poland, Turkey, India, and China.
According to the WGC, the major buyers so far in 2025, along with the United States, have been Uzbekistan, China, Kazakhstan, Poland, India, the Czech Republic, and Qatar.
Gold’s popularity means that production in Africa is booming, but some regions have moved faster than others to cash in, Major said.
Gilbert Khadiagala, political scientist at Wits University in Johannesburg, told The Epoch Times: “As things stand, some African gold producers are going to be hit with high tariffs by the Trump administration, like the 31 percent on South Africa. This has got them thinking: ‘How about we offer Trump some kind of better route to our gold as a bargaining chip to reduce the tariffs, like giving the Americans mining rights?’”
Gold’s high price is also opening other, darker doors.
“A lot of the gold entering the United States and other markets has been mined illegally,” Major said. “The [United Arab Emirates] imports the most African gold, legal and illegal, and it’s in the UAE that the gold is laundered and then exported around the world.”
Jalel Chelba, head of the African Union Mechanism for Police Cooperation, said there has been “a significant jump” in the numbers of international and African organized crime groups becoming involved in the illicit gold trade and gold trafficking.
“Criminals are exploiting the high price; they go where the money is,” he told The Epoch Times. “Groups are concentrating less on crimes like human trafficking and drug smuggling and moving resources towards illegally mined gold from countries like [the Democratic Republic of the Congo], [the Central African Republic], and Sudan, where there’s conflict and lawlessness.”
William Sommers, a broker who specializes in precious metals at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, told The Epoch Times that buyers “don’t really care” where the gold comes from.
“It’s a frenzy—just silly,” he said. “If this carries on for the next few years, I don’t know where it’s going to end. I mean, there’s not enough gold left in the ground to sustain this.”
