US and Canada gold reserves?

Question

why is it that when you combined the gold reserves of the largest economy in the world and the 8th most important economy in the world (top 9 world trading nation, 8th largest nominal gdp) the total would rank 12th in the world behind countries like Algeria, India, Hong Kong, and Taiwan ?

without gold how is a country like the US going to buy things if its currency devalued a lot ?

Answer 1

it wouldn't matter if our currency is devalued a lot. These days, few countries are on the gold standard. Countries loosely peg their currencies to other currencies. For example, the Chinese Yuan is pegged to a basket of currencies containing euro and USD.