By Anushree Mukherjee
(Reuters) – Gold rose to a three-week high on Monday, boosted by safe-haven demand after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on the European Union and Mexico, while silver hit a near 14-year peak.
Spot gold was up 0.4% at $3,369.89 per ounce, as of 1123 GMT, after hitting its highest level since June 23 earlier in the session.
U.S. gold futures rose 0.5% to $3,381.10.
Trump said on Saturday he would impose a 30% tariff on most imports from the EU and Mexico from August 1, adding to similar warnings for other countries.
Both the European Union and Mexico described the tariffs as unfair and disruptive, while the EU said it would extend its suspension of countermeasures to U.S. tariffs until early August and continue to press for a negotiated settlement.
“Trump tariffs threats are supporting demand for safe-haven assets, and gold is a main beneficiary of that,” said UBS commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
On the data front, traders await U.S. consumer price index data and the producer price index this week for cues on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path.
Investors are currently anticipating 50 basis points worth of Fed rate cuts by the end of this year, starting in October. Gold tends to thrive in a low-rate environment.
Meanwhile, Indian investors, traditionally obsessed with stockpiling gold, are increasingly turning to silver, as its returns this year outpaced those of gold.
Spot silver was up 1.6% at $38.96 per ounce after hitting its highest level since September 2011 earlier in the session.
The silver rally “is driven by speculative flows, with the metal moving above technical resistance levels,” Staunovo said.
ANZ in a note said silver breaking the $35–$37 range could potentially trigger new technical buying and drive prices toward $40.
Platinum was down 1.4% at $1,379.53. Palladium gained 1.3% to $1,230.32, the highest since late October 2024.
(Reporting by Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru, Additional reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad and Ishaan Arora; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Ronojoy Mazumdar and Maju Samuel)
