President Donald Trump’s White House maintains he didn’t chicken out after demanding the United States take ownership of Greenland from Denmark. That was only ever a negotiating tactic, not an end goal, in their telling.

Whatever the Trump administration’s spin, it was the bond market that forced the president to expedite his way to the negotiating table. It came after a fortnight of forcing the world’s focus on Iranian freedom fighters, who are threatening to oust the 47-year dictatorship by Shia Islamic fundamentalists.