A decade ago, I asked officials at the New York Federal Reserve if I could peek at their gold reserves. They refused point blank.

The reason? Fed officials have long taken pride in having the world’s biggest gold vault, dug 80ft down into Manhattan’s bedrock. But they prefer to keep it discreet, partly because many of the vault’s 507,000 bars belong to countries such as Germany and Italy. Silence was literally golden.

Now, however, a discordant note has been sounded. In recent weeks, politicians in Germany and Italy have demanded the repatriation of their gold bars, worth an estimated $245bn. So have others. “We are very concerned about [US President Donald] Trump tampering with the Federal Reserve Bank’s independence,” explains the Taxpayers Association of Europe.