Gold is what you use to facilitate trade with the more intact outside economies.

Just because things might go bad here does not mean they are going bad everywhere else, and just like in Africa where the world's market approaches the local warlords with anything and everything available to trade for gold and diamonds, the same would happen here.

International smugglers don't care too much what the cargo is, as long as it is profitable, and there are plenty of military warehouses abroad that someone will empty out in trade for Gold. They will not deliver that stuff in trade for freeze dried tomatoes.