US Wins Permanent Greenland Foothold in New Pact as Bond Yields Hit 5.2% and Economy Booms

President Donald Trump’s long-teased ambition to secure a strategic foothold in Greenland has come to fruition — not through a purchase or lease, but through a September 22 agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland that grants the US permanent basing, access, and overflight rights on the island. As Breitbart Business Digest reported, the pact carries no expiration date and would survive Greenland’s potential independence from Denmark, fixing a weakness in the 1951 arrangement that had been tied to the NATO treaty and could have lapsed.

The deal, according to the Digest, also permits the development of two additional US military sites and a proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system. It bars China and Russia from establishing a military footprint in Greenland and prohibits sensitive investments by non-allies, protecting the island’s mineral resources and emerging Arctic shipping lanes.

From ‘Insane’ to Done

When Trump first floated the idea in January, critics reacted with alarm. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told CNN it was “bananas” and “insane.” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) told Anderson Cooper that Trump was “a madman” and “insane,” accusing him of threatening war against a NATO ally. Stephen Colbert mocked the notion of invading a “frozen gravel pile.”

Trump’s stated rationale, delivered at a January press conference, was straightforward: “We need Greenland for national security purposes. I’m talking about protecting the free world. You look at — you don’t even need binoculars — you look outside. You have Chinese ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place.”

The Digest had previously estimated the cost of buying Greenland at $300 billion and suggested a lease at roughly $2.5 billion annually. The new agreement secures US access without either expense — what the Digest called “better than a purchase or a lease.”

Bond Yields Cross 5% — and Markets Shrug

While attention was fixed on artificial intelligence doomerism, the bond market made its own move. The 10-year Treasury yield surged 50 basis points over the past month to around 5.2 percent on Friday. Pundits treated the five percent threshold as a boundary beyond which chaos awaited — a line not crossed since 2007. Headlines warned of a “bond market rout” getting “worse.”

Yet by Friday, with yields still climbing, each major equities index was up for the day and above the prior week’s levels. The feared “Doom of Five Percent” did not materialize.

The Digest argued that the inflation-fear explanation was a misdiagnosis. Short-term consumer inflation expectations have risen with gas prices, but market-based measures have barely budged; inflation breakevens sit near their five-year range. Real yields account for the entire increase in nominal yields. Claims that foreign investors are balking at US paper also do not hold up, the Digest wrote, noting surging foreign demand for US equities and robust demand for Treasuries.

What is really happening, per the Digest: longer-term yields reflect expectations of short-term rates and, ultimately, Fed policy. With the economy booming — aided by an AI-driven investment surge and tax reforms in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill — policy rates can move higher without stifling growth. Bond yields are now free to reflect economic expectations in a way they have not for nearly 20 years, the Digest argued, because Kevin Warsh has taken the Fed out of the business of financial repression and ended quantitative easing.

PMI Signals Fastest Growth in Five Years

S&P Global reported this week that US business activity growth accelerated for a fourth successive month in September to the fastest rate in over five years. The composite flash PMI rose to 58.4 from August’s 56 — the highest in 62 months and above even the most bullish forecasts. Manufacturing jumped to 57.0 from an upwardly revised 53.9, while services rose to 58.7, defying expectations of a slowdown.

Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: “US business continues to boom, with output growing at the fastest rate for over five years in September. Historical comparisons suggest that the latest survey data point to annualized growth of around 5% with a 4% gain now signalled for the third quarter as a whole.” He added that barring the post-COVID reopening spike, the improvement is the greatest recorded since early 2015.

Hard data backs the boom. August durable goods orders showed non-defense, ex-transportation orders up 1.6 percent for the month, following gains of 0.6 percent in July and 1.7 percent in June. Core capital goods orders are up 10.6 percent year over year. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNOW has third-quarter growth at 5.0 percent as of Friday.

Consumer sentiment, however, continues to sink — a disconnect the Digest summed up as: “Never have so many felt so bad about an economy that is so good.”

Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/09/25/breitbart-business-digest-the-end-of-fear-mongering-over-greenland-and-the-bond-market/