Hostages From North Korea Released

Another post just to mark the event that three American hostages are being released from North Korea today:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/09/3-americans-detained-in-north-korea-in-good-health-and-on-their-way-back-to-us-trump-says.html

https://abcnews.go.com/International/trump-americans-held-north-korea-back-us/story?id=54905339

I wondered a while back if these hostages had anything to do with North Korea’s sudden willingness to bargain. What has the U.S. given up to get these hostages back? Or did the U.S. deliver some kind of private ultimatum that forced North Korea to release the hostages and come to the table? Did the U.S. have anything at all to do with it? I don’t know, but I’ll be curious to find out the answers someday.