The United States and the Trump administration see Macedonia as a close friend, "not only in the region but in Europe", and American support remains unchanged. That is the message Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski brought from Washington, where he is on a working visit of several days. Every prime minister who has been to Washington brings that sentence home. The question is what comes with it.

The list is long. A meeting with Caroline Wick of the DFC, the US International Development Finance Corporation, which according to the prime minister manages a portfolio of around 200 billion dollars. Talks on financing Chebren and Galishte. Talks on data centres with Chris Pavlovski, founder of the Rumble platform, and with five other companies. "This is an irreversible process. Humanity will move in that direction," Mickoski says.

Now the audit, line by line. Chebren and Galishte: a channel for further communication has been established; there is no published financing decision. Data centres: talks. The only item with a signature behind it is Krstov Dol, the antimony mine - back in April the DFC confirmed up to five million dollars in project financing for Pela Global, and that is for preparation and assessment, not construction. Translated from diplomatic into plain speech: everything else is "announced".

The figures the prime minister carries as evidence are a mixed bag. GDP growth of 4.3 percent in the second quarter is confirmed by official statistics, with construction up 21.9 percent. But the claim that inflation here is "two to two and a half percent lower" than Europe's does not survive a check: in August the cost of living rose 2.6 percent here against 3.2 percent in the EU. A gap of 0.6 percentage points - and between indicators that are not methodologically identical. When the number is good, there is no need to round it up.

The most concrete thing out of Washington concerns Bulgaria. There will be no withdrawal from the agreements - the expectations of "certain radical elements in our own structure", as the prime minister called them, "would be ideal if we were alone in this world, but we are not alone". Instead: "We need one more at the table. Let that be a representative, perhaps from the European Union." He described relations with Sofia as "a two-way street" and repeated: "I will never enter a process without a predictable end." He has already raised the subject with Antonio Costa and Kaja Kallas. Translated: the constitutional amendments are still on the table, only now we want Brussels sitting at it too.

At home, SDSM leader Venko Filipche claims the American administration holds a different view of the government's policies and raises two questions: who exactly is travelling in the delegation, and what it costs. A question that deserves an answer with a number, not an adjective.

Does Washington see us as a close friend? Probably - that is how it sees everyone who turns up for a meeting. Will it put money into Chebren? We will know when we see a signature, not an interview. So far there is one signature, and it is worth up to five million dollars.