Can BRICS Gold Reserves Challenge the US Dollar?

In this episode of At the Boundary, William Parker, a Business Librarian at the University of South Florida (USF) sat down with GNSI’s Strategy and Research Manager Dr. Tad Schnaufer to the newest GNSI Decision Brief, "Assessing BRICS Gold Holdings."

They discussed how BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have been increasing their gold reserves in an effort to challenge Western financial systems and reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar. The conversation also explores the role of gold in a nation’s financial and economic credibility.

Some of the key topics discussed include:

• What BRICS and BRICS+ represent, and why their expansion matters geopolitically
• Why gold still matters, even when some nations have dropped the gold standard
• The potential shortcomings of fiat currencies
• The potential for BRICS nations to offer an alternative to the US dollar in the global financial structure
• How physical gold can act as a tool to circumvent sanctions
• What other metals, if any, could compete with gold as a monetary standard
• “Currency decoupling” and its effects on monetary systems

Links From the Episode:

• Assessing BRICS Gold Holdings Decision Brief

• 2025 Notes From Cambridge

• Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War GNSI Summit

• Axis of Resistance GNSI Research Initiative

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

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The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

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Transcript

Glenn Beckmann: 0:12

Glenn, Hi everybody. Welcome to this week's at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Glenn Beckman, communications manager at GNSI, and your host for today's at the boundary. On the show. Today, we're going to get a chance to take a closer look at a recently published GNSI decision brief. The author of the brief, USF business librarian, William Parker will join us to further dig into his analysis of the financial holdings of BRICS. No, not the stuff you make buildings with, but the consortium of 10 countries trying to position itself as an alternative to Western institutions, led by China and Russia, BRICS is trying to leverage its gold holdings to compete with the dominance of the US dollar in the global economy. And Parker will be joining us in a moment. There's a new update for notes from Cambridge on our website. That's the student blog being written by Kyle Rudd and may Burch, the two USF students GNSI sent to the UK to study at the 2025 International Security and Intelligence Program, which is part of the Cambridge Security Initiative Kyle and may have hit the ground running learning from some of the world's leading academics and practitioners in the national security and intelligence industries. They're also squeezing in a bit of fun while in the UK. May even celebrated her birthday last week. Check out their blog on the GNSI website. Lots of updates every week. We'll have a link in the show notes. We're in the process of finalizing our Summit Report from GNSI Tampa summit five, the Russia, Ukraine, war lessons for future conflicts. Look for that soon online, and if you'd like a refresher on the conference, you can find all of the videos on our YouTube channel. Speaking of our YouTube channel, if you haven't checked out Axis of Resistance, you're missing some great insight and analysis. Axis is the research initiative created by GNSI Research Fellow Dr Armon makhmudian, and takes a deep and comprehensive look at Iran's collection of loosely aligned state and non state groups trying to destabilize the Middle East. We're five sessions in, and the reaction has been fantastic. Check them out. Just search for Axis of Resistance on our YouTube channel. All right, let's welcome our special guest today. He's William Parker, the author of a recently published GNSI decision brief titled assessing bricks gold holdings. Parker is a business librarian at USF and holds an MLS as well as a master's degree in Business Finance. Joining him for the interview will be GNSI strategy and research manager Dr tad schnaufer.

Tad Schnaufer: 3:05

Well, Glenn, thank you for that great introduction. And William, welcome to the podcast.

Will Parker: 3:09

Yes, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to come here and speak well,

Tad Schnaufer: 3:13

you know, gold's always an interesting topic, so I think it'll be pretty interesting to dive into that today. So first for our audience, you know you wrote a publication with us recently, a decision brief on the gold reserve of the BRICS nations. So first, perhaps we should talk about, what are the BRICS nations, and why are they important?

Will Parker: 3:30

So the BRICS is a group of major emerging economies who formed with the intentions to counterbalance Western dominance and the global economic system, particularly the United States. Dollar.

Tad Schnaufer: 3:44

Okay, excellent. And what are the BRICS nations? Obviously, we got Brazil, Russia, and then who else we have in Walter,

Will Parker: 3:50

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And the block is currently growing and expanding. A lot of people refer to that as BRICS plus, and they are trying to increase their footprint around the globe and bring in many more partners, right, right?

Tad Schnaufer: 4:10

With those partners expanding, you know, you took an interesting approach of looking at their gold reserves, right? So what? Why does gold matter, particularly when several nations, including United States, have come off the gold standard, going back to the US left the gold standard in 1971 during the Nix administration. So why is gold

Will Parker: 4:26

important today? Yes, well, gold has historically been used as a form of money. It has very unique properties. It's not easily created or accumulated. It has properties that make it very durable, and all of this makes it a great store of value. So throughout history, nations have relied on gold as part of their monetary system, and um, they sometimes use it as their base. Most often use it as their monetary base. Sometimes circulate it throughout the economy. Now we are in a period where you. We have fiat currency, and our currency is not backed by gold. Fiat currency's value is created and maintained by the nation who may default or fail, while gold will always have intrinsic value that's not dependent on a counter party. It can't lose its value from a nation failing, or anything of that nature.

Tad Schnaufer: 5:24

So a fiat currency, then is just like the US dollar,

Will Parker: 5:28

yes, not backed by any particular thing other than the credibility of the government,

Tad Schnaufer: 5:33

right? And then gold is a precious metal, obviously. And there's the whatever human assigned value to gold? Yes, and throughout history, as you mentioned, gold's been used popularly in currency exchanges or just as a way to demonstrate wealth. So why does a country's gold desert reserves today mean anything different than they did, you know, 100 years

Will Parker: 5:57

ago? Yes, well, large gold reserves, they add credibility to the nation's currency. So a lot of decisions are made at the investor level, or from the investor's perspective, and so since a nation holds gold reserves that can be used in times of crisis to stabilize the currency or serve as collateral or loans or other types of agreements, investors tend to favor those types of economies and nations more favorably than if they had no other options or had no ability to insulate themselves with a physical asset, really the

Tad Schnaufer: 6:43

larger the gold reserves, then, is more stability in the economy, or at least possibility for stability? Yes, I believe so with the gold reserves of nations. Who? What country currently has the largest gold reserve?

Will Parker: 6:54

Well, let's see. United States has the largest gold reserve out of all nations, the g7 combined is the largest block, while the total BRICS is slightly behind, behind the United States in terms of the amount held, with each individual brick nation being less, with highest of Russia six point something percent.

Tad Schnaufer: 7:23

So in your decision brief, you note that the BRICS nations, particularly are stockpiling gold. So is this some sort of challenge to the west, or how? What's it actually doing for them?

Will Parker: 7:33

Well, in a way, it could be a challenge because it allows people to believe that their financial systems are more credible, and it gives the world another option with other nations who have credible financial systems, credible currencies and things of that nature. So in a way, it makes the United States dollar not look like the only option, as it has been for a long time.

Tad Schnaufer: 8:07

And what's this mean in relative terms? So the BRICS nations, whether it's Russia or China, their gold reserves are increasing far faster than, say, the US or any other countries in the West.

Will Parker: 8:16

Yes, Russia has the highest rate over 10% annual compound annual growth rate. China has large reserves. Second behind Russia, they have a compound annual growth rate of about 7.7% United States has not increased or decreased its holdings in a long time, while the g7 has slightly decreased since the inception of BRICS. But at the rate that BRICS countries, particularly Russia and China, are increasing, it is getting closer to the amount of gold that the United States reserve has, and the BRICS combined is getting closer to the total combined amount of gold holdings that g7 has,

Tad Schnaufer: 9:07

right? And does this give them, as in Russia or China or maybe some of the other BRICS nations, more leverage in negotiations or economic deals?

Will Parker: 9:16

Yes, I believe so, because the gold that they have can be used in trade deals. It can be used outside of a global monetary system that's controlled by nations that compete with them. It can settle certain types of deals, and it gives autonomy and more flexibility for them to achieve their fiscal policy or negotiations.

Tad Schnaufer: 9:47

Would it be possible to use these large stockpiles to also soften the blow of Western sanctions, for example, on Russia? Yes,

Will Parker: 9:56

for sure, because gold as a physical asset, it doesn't. Go through the banking system that, say, regular fiat currencies go through today. So if Russia were to be sanctioned, they can still trade gold, because it's outside of, say, the SWIFT system. It's outside of any form of control that other nations would be able to do, and they can trade directly with whoever they want to trade with, whoever is willing to trade with them, settle in gold or use gold as collateral in that deal.

Tad Schnaufer: 10:34

Well. And that goes to obviously, the US and the West has sanctions on Russia and a number of other countries, but gold might be a way around it, which is an interesting point. So what does the US need to look at for its own gold reserve strategy? Then?

Will Parker: 10:48

Well, in my opinion, I think that the more gold reserves, the higher gold reserves, the better off United States would be. So as we noted, our currency isn't, or isn't currently backed by gold. And throughout the time of having no increases in our gold reserves, the currency United States dollar has continued to expand in supply. And so that's a further debasement. So as we mentioned, the investor perspective, some people think that the United States dollar is being stretched too thin, not being backed by anything physical, particularly gold, which is has intrinsic value, a historical transit value, and I think that it would be best to continue expanding the gold reserves. So

Tad Schnaufer: 11:40

why not just keep the gold tied to the dollar to make sure that it's a secure currency?

Will Parker: 11:46

Well, I think in history, what we have seen is that the governments tend to need to make more payments for welfare, for doing, say, war financing, for doing other types of things of that nature, and with the amount of physical gold that they have present, they can't make those payments, or else the gold was deep be depleted. And so what they do is they debase the currency from gold. So for instance, they might if gold was a um, a full physical coin, they might start diluting the amount of gold in that coin to copper. And now we're seeing actual physical paper, um that just has ink with an image of, you know, created by United States, which is significantly, you know, less expensive to create, less expensive to distribute, than physical gold is, and that is the reason that you can't necessarily stay back to a physical product like gold that is not easy to expand, not easy to accumulate while still trying to achieve your goals of welfare, of paying militaries and paying things of that nature

Tad Schnaufer: 13:11

that has to do with the country's debt, then just increasing the expenditures, and you just can't keep the gold reserves increasing enough to back the dollar directly. Yes, for sure, and like you mentioned, the use of precious metals in coins obviously goes back throughout history, but even within US currency before, particularly the 1960s most coins either had elements of silver or other precious metals in them. So was that change away from those also part of this decoupling away from kind of precious metals, because it wasn't just gold, it was also silver. Was also silver and other metals. Yes, I would say so. And one of the first times the US decoupled its currency was actually in the lead up to World War Two. Is there any? But they were able to bring the debt back down, and then re, I guess, re, establish that currency Correct?

Will Parker: 14:00

I would have to do more research on that. I know, particularly in conflict and war, we see inflation, and so that is one of the key times of when a nation would want to debase its currency and expand the money supply so that they can do wartime financing. So I know after the war is over, then the goal is to reduce the inflation, to get back to equilibrium, to get to levels that work for the economy. While they aren't always going back to a physical standard, a gold standard, or something like that, it's not pretty much, in my opinion, is just new levels of some form of of money that isn't at the same level as the previous one. Is

Tad Schnaufer: 14:51

there any other, uh, precious metal or some other resource that could replace gold? Is there anything that has, you know, obviously silver is, like, ranked below gold, but, you know, some. As people talk about other metals, is there anything that competes with gold?

Will Parker: 15:06

Well, there is a lot of debate on this. I personally don't believe so. I mean, historically speaking, gold has been the highest form of physical money, going back 1000s of years. There are other metals that are being mined that weren't previously mined. There's other forms of commodities and other forms of physical product that could be a replacement if that happens. I I don't see it happening at the moment, but

Tad Schnaufer: 15:41

it is possible, right? So the gold is kind of the try and true method for, for sure, the most secure, right? So with that in mind, how do we move forward? So we have, like, Russia's war in Ukraine, you have these conflicts. How's that affecting gold reserves around the world, and where are the major and how much mining is going on? Are we still seeing a lot of

Will Parker: 16:03

gold mines? Yes, there are countries who are very well known for their mines. Russia has substantial gold mines. Australia has substantial gold mines. United States does. China, while it doesn't have many as much confirmed reserve gold reserves and the ground its output is tremendous compared to, say, like, what Russia is producing from their known reserves. So I think there is a major push for countries to to mine their gold. Um, particularly Russia and China. Now, there have also been reports and discussions that a lot of the gold that is being mined in particularly Russia and China, is kind of in the shadow system, where it's not being reported on a global scale, so their reserves could potentially also be larger than what's reported and the leading databases that track it,

Tad Schnaufer: 17:06

and could they, in a sense, flood the market, devalue the devalue gold?

Will Parker: 17:12

I guess that is possible. We've seen it with other types of assets, but I I personally don't know why they would do that, or if it would be possible, or if it, you know if it would be effective if they did choose to do that. So

Tad Schnaufer: 17:31

the BRICS nations have created some of their own central banking and again, to directly compete with the US. Is this? Is this gold reserves across the different members of the BRICs? Is that helping establish that competitive bank?

Will Parker: 17:44

I think it is yes, and it's all about investor perspective. So the more reserves that they have, the more credible their financial systems will appear. And

Tad Schnaufer: 17:56

when you say investors, are you talking about other nations or just large businesses like Microsoft or something. Who do you mean by investor? Well, it could be

Will Parker: 18:04

populations. It could be hedge funds. It could be major corporations, any, any type of investor who chooses to park their assets their their value in those countries, or chooses to use those countries to produce their output in

Tad Schnaufer: 18:23

particular, and then also the country's currencies, right? So which countries, which, which currencies are actually trusted based off of respective gold reserve?

Will Parker: 18:32

Yes, it's a component of the currency's credibility.

Tad Schnaufer: 18:36

And then, uh, lastly, do we see any major exchanges of gold otherwise, other than the BRICS nations increasing, are there any other increases or major decreases on the world stage today?

Will Parker: 18:48

I would need to look further into that, and my focus has been particularly on BRICS, because of their major emerging economy status, and a lot of investors are wanting to flock to invest into those countries. So that's been my particular study. I would have to look to see if there's other nations that have that kind of level of gold reserves and are increasing at that rate. So I can't necessarily answer that. Well,

Tad Schnaufer: 19:19

what's pulling investors away from the Western markets, which are a little bit more stable and, you know, more established?

Will Parker: 19:26

Well, I wouldn't say they're necessarily being pulled to the fullest extent, but it's all about opportunity. So emerging markets, they have potential for growth, while, say, like the g7 nations who were advanced, who might have reached peak growth, they might not have as much opportunity to have a return on investment.

Tad Schnaufer: 19:54

So the BRICS nations are growing would be growing faster than the traditional, maybe the traditional. National Western markets, so there's more opportunity there for larger returns.

Will Parker: 20:05

I would say yes, because they have a large population. The BRICS population has been reported of over um 41% of the global population. So that's a huge consumer base, and they already have 31% of the share of the global economy in terms of GDP.

Tad Schnaufer: 20:29

Okay, interesting. You know, I have to ask before we wrap up. So what got you interested directly in gold? Well,

Will Parker: 20:35

I, I'll keep going back to an investor's perspective. I have looked into the finances of the United States, I see the currency base, the supply continuing to expand. I see the national debt growing. I see more reliance on foreign foreign loans, foreign investment. And it's kind of scary, and So gold is a very, very safe asset to counterbalance those types of risk. And that's what got me interested in gold, really,

Tad Schnaufer: 21:12

so that it's really a solution to a problem that you see developing. I think so yes. So what would you say to a US decision maker, a economic policy leader. What do they need to do with gold going forward? Let's say next 510, years,

Will Parker: 21:29

if, if it were my decision, and I would tell somebody else making that decision that higher reserves are better and they provide credibility. They can the larger gold reserves can be used in times of instability to stabilize the currency, or as a loan of last resort, collateral for a loan of last resort.

Tad Schnaufer: 21:51

So then why? You know, the US is obviously a very rich nation, so why wouldn't we just buy a bunch more gold, if it's if it has those effects, why not just keep a massive a larger obviously, we have a large reserve, but why not more? I

Will Parker: 22:02

think there's other focus and priorities. There have been mentions of adding cryptocurrencies and to our strategic reserve and things of that nature. And some people might believe that that is a replacement for that. But if it were me, I would stick to a physical asset that doesn't rely on power to uphold its value, that doesn't rely on counter parties or anything of that nature. And that's a solid asset, a solid physical asset with, you know, historical perspective of maintaining its value for over 1000s of years.

Tad Schnaufer: 22:45

When is any closing comments as we look, as we look forward into the development of gold reserves across the BRICS nations?

Will Parker: 22:52

Oh, I would just, you know, ask policy makers to continue looking into the subject, and to look at the trends in the global economy, and look at the historical events that have taken place around gold used as wartime financing, gold used as to stabilize the currency, and all the great benefits that Gold can be used to protect the nation and to ensure the wealth of a nation. Well, thank you so much, William. Thank you.

Glenn Beckmann: 23:32

There you have it. A conversation between GNSI tad schnaufer and William Parker from USF and the author of a GNSI decision brief titled assessing BRICS gold holdings. Thanks to both of them for joining us today. Next week, on at the boundary, we'll be announcing our next GNSI Research Initiative. GNSI Senior Research Fellow Dr Rob Burrell will lead the new initiative called the future of warfare, and he'll be our guest next week. Rob has been a guest previously on the podcast, and we're really looking forward to having him back. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. We're available on all the major platforms, including Apple podcasts, Spotify and Amazon music, and we're also available on the GNSI YouTube channel, we'd appreciate a like, follow or subscribe, wherever you might find us that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be worthy of attention and discussion. We hope you enjoyed the show today. I'm Glenn Beckman, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next week at the boundary. You.