It's good to be the king. At least it's good for business.

Another YY Development Group project, Trump Tower Punta del Este, rises in Uruguay. Photo credit to Gentileza El País via  TheBubble.

The story of that November 14 phone congratulations-on-your-election call from Argentine president Mauricio Macri to Donald Trump in which Trump may have asked Macri to help him out in getting a building permit for a Trump Tower Buenos Aires (Macri's office has denied that) is getting a little thicker, thanks at least in part to an intrepid Twitter researcher who reads Spanish:

The next day, Nov 15th, YY announces construction on TTBA will commence in June 2017, and will be completed in 2020. https://t.co/ssqtx7MF00

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) November 22, 2016

YY is YY Development Group, principals Felipe Yaryura and Moisés Yellati, the company that's actually developing the project—Trump, as is his usual practice, is simply supplying the brand name and the fabulous standards of excellence that go with it (he's said to have demanded that materials imported from outside Argentina, from bathroom fixtures to paint pigment). Felipe Yaryura, a pal of Eric Trump's, is the person from whom the Pink House (Casa Rosada, Argentina's presidential residence) got the president-elect's number when they placed the call (Macri, who publicly backed Clinton during the campaign, seems to have been pretty anxious to get on the phone with Trump, an old business associate of Macri's real estate magnate father).

So the day after this phone call between Trump & Macri, arranged by Yaryura, Trump Tower moves ahead as if all approvals have been obtained

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) November 22, 2016

(Actually there was an earlier announcement of the project, the day after the election, November 9,  but the announcement of the 15th was the first to lay out a construction timetable.)

Only the weird thing about that is that  all approvals haven't been obtained at all. The Buenos Aires city government knows nothing about it, no paperwork has been submitted; in a news story of the 16th, Argentina's BigBangNews called the project an edificio fantasma, a ghost building. So why did YY announce it, the very day after that phone call from the president to the president-elect, which Felipe Yaryura arranged? It couldn't possibly be that Macri promised Trump he'd take care of the permissions, because staff said he didn't, and I'm sure they would never lie. Wait, I don't know who they are, do I?

Famous populists in Trump Tower (NY) elevator. From Nigel Farage's Twitter feed via Quartz.

And then there's Trump's entirely unconcealed workover of Member of the European Parliament Nigel Farage of the fascistoid UK Independence Party, who paid a congratulatory personal call at Trump Tower (NY) on November 12: Trump asked him to use his influence to oppose wind farms like the one that is, in the Trumpian opinion, going to spoil the view for duffers at the Trump International Golf Links near Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.

And now Farage comes up in a very unexpected conversation, on the Twitter of course,

Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016

Prime Minister May is not amused:

The prime minister’s office quickly dismissed the recommendation, telling reporters: “There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the U.S.” in Kim Darroch, a former national security adviser.

There'll always be an England! I hope.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.