China’s “Silver Gate,” Gold & War as we continue kicking off trading in 2026.
January 7 (King World News) – Gerald Celente and Gregory Mannarino: Sad, but true, the greater the socioeconomic and geopolitical instability the higher the prices of safe-assets such as gold and silver rise, and now is a time of serious danger ahead for all to see and hear.
The Trends Journal accurately had forecast a “GOLDEN YEAR FOR GOLD” in 2024, when gold was selling for $2,041 per ounce. On Monday, as we write this article, gold prices spiked some $125 and were selling at $4,456 per ounce. Silver, which hit a high of $80 per ounce near the end of last year, but fell back to the $71 range, was up nearly $5 per ounce, selling at $77.64 per ounce.
Gerald Celente said the spike in the precious metals market shows “how bad things really are” in the global economy, warning that the world will be heading toward “Dragflation (declining economic growth and rising inflation.)
And on the geopolitical front, President Donald Trump attacked Venezuela, arrested its President and his wife, brought them to New York and sent him to jail on charges of drug trafficking etc., as we detail in our WW III article. Ramping up more war, on Sunday Donald Trump warned that attacks on Columbia may be next. “Colombia’s very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long. Let me tell you.”
Claiming that Greenland is also on his war list, on Sunday he also said, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” and that “it’s so strategic.”
Meanwhile, Israel keeps ramping up the war in the Middle East, attacking Syria, Lebanon, stealing more land in the West Bank and Gaza and killing Palestinians on a daily basis. And on Monday, Yair Lapid, who was a former Israeli Prime Minister, played up the U.S. attack on Venezuela as a playlist to attack Iran. He wrote on X that “The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela.”
Forgotten
Over the past year, Gerald Celente and The Trends Journal had noted that the mainstream news media hardly reported on the rise of gold and silver until October, when they could no longer hide its rapid price rise. Yet, they compared it to the late 1970s, when Celente first started buying gold, which he said is a terrible comparison.
“Here’s the deal, back in 1978, when gold prices were spiking, America was number one. Nobody was close to us,” Celente said. He cited China’s Gross Domestic Product back then which was under $150 billion compared to the U.S. GDP at that time, which was around $2.5 trillion. But now the game has changed, China’s GDP in 2025 was nearly $20 trillion and the U.S. GDP was $30.6 trillion.
And very important, Celente has said that what is going to drive gold prices much higher, is the coming death of the USD.
Gold is dollar based. The weaker the USD becomes, the cheaper it is to buy in other countries whose currencies have risen. And as we have detailed, President Trump is in favor of a cheap dollar. In July he said, “You make a helluva lot more money with a weaker dollar,” but when you have a strong dollar “you don’t do any tourism, you can’t sell tractors, you can’t sell trucks, you can’t sell anything.” Also, the lower interest rates fall, the deeper the dollar falls, and the deeper the dollar falls, the higher gold prices will rise.
And as we have detailed, many countries, especially the BRICS, which account for some 40 percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product, are uniting against the U.S. economic hegemony and will do what they can to trade without dollars. Reuters reported that the dollar index, which compares the USD to a basket of six other currencies, saw a 9.4 percent drop in 2025, which represented its biggest fall in eight years. The report blamed a variety of causes, from Trump’s tariff war to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts.
Silver, which is also dollar based, is also benefiting from a weakening dollar, and with the AI boom and silver being used in heavy industry and the hi-tech industries, its prices will also continue to rise. And with gold prices so high, silver is “the poor man’s gold.”
Again, as we noted, silver hit $80 an ounce for the first time last week but pulled back to the low $70 range as of Friday.
It is a guessing game on The Street about how many times the Fed will cut rates in 2026, and the range is one cut on the low end to four cuts on the high end. President Donald Trump has been clear that he believes the Fed has been too cautious in the past year, so it is safe to assume that he will do all that he can to make sure the cuts keep coming, so AI borrowing is less expensive to ward off a potential crash.
But while the Fed cuts these rates, the USD will continue to lose value, and gold will become all the more appealing in the foreign market. Silver will also maintain its demand in AI technology, from internal connections to power distribution.
TREND FORECAST:
The Ukraine War still runs the risk of escalating WW III and last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the U.S. to meet with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. They spoke about the risks of Iran’s ballistic missile program and the possibility of another war. Trump seemed to agree with everything Netanyahu said. Haaretz, the Israeli paper, said Trump’s comments seemed to read like a “script direct from Netanyahu.”
Global conflict leads to instability and instability leads to investors seeking a safe-haven investment to store their wealth, so safe-haven assets like gold and silver generally benefit…
Listen to the greatest Egon von Greyerz audio interview ever
by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
High spiking gold prices are an economic warning alarm of socioeconomic and geopolitical danger ahead… and the “White Shoe Wall Street Boys want to just keep the equity markets rising,” Celente has said.
Celente has warned that the looming Dot-Com Bust will crash the equity markets because these stocks have been a major driving force on The Street and are “way overvalued.”
“Yes, we forecast that the worst is yet to come and that more foreign nations and new upstarts will keep producing more advanced AI with cheaper chips,” he said, and that China will be the world’s AI leader. And when there is the Dot-Com Bust 2.0, the equity markets will crash and gold and silver prices will spike.
MANNARINO’S TAKE
BY GREGORY MANNARINO, TradersChoice.net
Let me start at the top.
There is a lot of talk on this already on YouTube and other social media outlets… but here are the facts.
China isn’t “banning” silver… they’re making it “permissioned.”
Permissioned means exports aren’t just buyer/seller anymore. Instead, they are buyer/seller plus government approval… and that’s the key.
When a metal becomes “permissioned,” flows become political.
And when flows become political, price discovery gets violent. (I will detail this further towards the end.)
Expect volatility, expect higher premiums, and also expect headlines that hit fast, creating fear and confusion.
I fully expect that the Babylon Priests, the mainstream media, and even some “alternative” media outlets, will make this deliberately confusing and misleading.
With “Silver Gate” now on the US political stage, expect Trump’s favorite frame to hit… “China weaponizes supply chains.”
Further US political Trumpism fallout.
Trump is the easiest political puppet, in the history of political puppets, to read. Trump has already been publicly focused on China export controls/critical minerals as a strategic lever.
So…
Expect Trump will blame America’s industrial freefall on China.
Expect Trump to say “China is choking US industry.”
Expect Trump to say “We’ll force them to open the gate, they are violating the truce.”
Let’s break this all down.
THE Bottom line… China just set up a “silver export gate.”
So, what is a “silver export gate?” Now to ship silver out of China, a company has to qualify first.
There are three parts to this.
If you are a producer trying to get approved, you have to prove you’re big enough. (China’s rules use a minimum production bar, about 80 tonnes of silver in 2024, with a lower bar in some western regions).
There are new quality/compliance requirements.
If you are an exporter, you must show a real export track record, not just “we want to start exporting.”
China has already shown they will say NO. So far, about 50 companies have applied for silver export qualification, and some were already rejected.
MAJOR KEY POINT ONE.
Exports of silver will be permissioned and controlled… and
MAJOR KEY POINT TWO.
That’s how physical tightness and price spikes can happen fast. (As I said at the open, expect increased volatility in the price-action of silver as a result).
MAJOR KEY POINT THREE.
This is resource control by “paperwork.”
When a country can slow or steer exports with licensing, it can create tightness and price spikes.
(THIS IS WHERE IT GETS REALLY INTERESTING…)
China’s 2024 silver exports were reported around 4,244.3 metric tons, so if exports slow, the rest of the world feels it.
What We Should Expect.
Near-term (weeks). Volatility + headline spikes. Regional shortages and increased premiums… Why? Some buyers WILL pay up to secure physical supply.
Mid-term (months). Expect inventory drawdowns.
MAJOR KEY POINT. (Longer-term). This increases the odds of sudden upside moves.
BOTTOM LINE. Two points.
China’s “Silver Gate” can potentially be a powerful upside mover for the price action of physical silver.
China’s “Silver Gate” is structurally and potentially VERY bullish for physical silver as it adds a “policy throttle” to a market that already struggles to respond quickly on supply.
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