Trump says UK’s Starmer making ‘a big mistake’ with Chagos Islands deal | News

The US president warned the military base on Diego Garcia may be needed to respond to possible attack from Iran.

Donald Trump has criticised the United Kingdom’s plan to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a day after the United States Department of State gave its official approval of the deal.

The US president said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” in the agreement to return sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius, and lease back the island of Diego Garcia, which is home to a UK-US military base.

He warned in a Truth Social post that Starmer was “losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before”, adding: “In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”

The Indian Ocean archipelago became part of British territory in 1814, with the UK detaching it from Mauritius before it gained independence in the 1960s. It then worked with the US to force the islands’ residents to leave, in order to build a military base on Diego Garcia, which it had leased to the US.

Mauritius won its legal battle for sovereignty over the islands in 2019, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) urged the UK to cede control. This was followed by a UN resolution giving the UK six months to hand it back.

The UK will maintain a 99-year lease of Diego Garcia with an option to extend, which will cost around 100 million pounds ($135m) a year.

The UK Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the deal was “crucial to the security of the UK and our key allies, and to keeping the British people safe. It added that the agreement was “the only way to guarantee the long-term future of this vital military base.”

Trump had criticised the agreement in January, but after speaking with Starmer earlier in February, the US leader said the British prime minister had made “the best deal he could”.

In his Truth Social post on Wednesday, the president went on to warn that “it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford in order to eradicate a potential attack” from Iran, should it decide against making a deal with the US. He added that this attack “would potentially be made” on the UK and other friendly countries.

Describing the lease as tenuous, he said that the UK must “remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them”.

A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the deal was “crucial to the security of the UK and our key allies, and to keeping the British people safe.”

“The agreement we have reached is the only way to guarantee the long-term future of this vital military base,” the spokesperson said.

Chagossians, who were sent to Mauritius and the Seychelles, with many settling in the UK, have been fighting to return to the islands for years.