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Jennifer Clarke
AlamyUS President Donald Trump has said the UK’s plan to hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is an “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY”, months after he endorsed the move.
Under the £3.4bn ($4.6bn) deal, the UK will lease back Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, and home to a UK-US military base.
Although the deal was agreed by the UK and Mauritius in May 2025, it has not yet been ratified by the UK Parliament, so the Chagos Islands remain British territory.
Where are the Chagos Islands?
The Chagos Islands – officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory – are located in the Indian Ocean about 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, and about 1,250 miles north-east of Mauritius.
Also known as the Chagos Archipelago, there are around 60 individual islands, grouped together in seven ring-shaped coral atolls. The islands were separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.
Britain purchased the islands for £3m but Mauritius has argued that it was illegally forced to give them away as part of a deal to gain independence from Britain.
In the late 1960s, Britain invited the US to build a military base on Diego Garcia, forcibly removing thousands of people from their homes in the process.
Some of those Chagossians ended up in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others settled in the UK, mostly in Crawley, West Sussex.
Getty ImagesWhat does the deal say, and how much will it cost the UK?
The UK will hand sovereignty of the archipelago back to Mauritius, but it will lease Diego Garcia for a period of 99 years – at an average cost of £101m a year.
The UK will pay £165m in each of the first three years. From years four to 13, it will pay £120m a year. After that, payments will be linked to inflation.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the continued use of Diego Garcia was necessary to protect the base from “malign influence”. He said the US would pay the base’s “running costs”.
The agreement also includes a £40m trust fund to support Chagossians.
Under the deal, although Mauritius will control Diego Garcia, it will not be allowed to resettle the island.
What has Trump said about the Chagos Islands deal?
Speaking ahead of the deal, during a February 2025 White House visit by Starmer, Trump indicated that he would be prepared to back the Chagos plans.
“They’re talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually,” he said. “That’s a long time, and I think we’ll be inclined to go along with your country.”
When the deal was finally agreed, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had “expressed his support for this monumental achievement”.
However, writing on the Truth Social website in January 2026, Trump called it an “act of total weakness”.
He wrote: “Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.”
He said the agreement was among a “very long line of National Security reasons” underpinning his current efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark.
BBC News correspondent Nomia Iqbal said the timing of Trump’s remarks could be designed to punish Starmer for supporting Denmark on Greenland.
She said it was also the case that Trump’s previous position on handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands was inconsistent with “taking” Greenland on security grounds.
How has the UK responded to Trump’s comments?
A UK government spokesman said that the UK had acted to protect the base on Diego Garcia after court decisions threatened its future operations.
“This deal secures the operations of the joint US-UK base on Diego Garcia for generations with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out.”
Writing on X, the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the deal as “not just an act of stupidity, but of complete self sabotage”.
Badenoch, who criticised the deal when it was signed in May, said Trump was right and called on Starmer to change course.
Reform leader Nigel Farage also posted on X, where he said: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.”
The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said Trump’s Chagos comments show Starmer’s approach to the US president “has failed”.
How is the deal viewed in Mauritius?
When the deal was agreed in May 2025, Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam said the deal was a “great victory for the Mauritian nation”, which completed “the total process of decolonisation”.
Speaking at the time Mauritian Attorney General Gavin Glover told BBC News: “Our country is elated that this 60-year struggle is finally over, especially for our brothers and sisters who were forced to leave their homes.”
Although Chagossians have differing views on the deal, one elderly woman at the headquarters of the Chagos Refugee Group headquarters in Mauritius, celebrated it. “Now I can finally go there… and die in peace,” she said.
What is the Diego Garcia military base and why is it so important?
Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands.
Since the early 1970s, the UK and the US have jointly run a secretive military base there. The government says its facilities include an airfield and deep-water port, as well as advanced communications and surveillance capabilities.
There are no commercial flights to the island. Access is granted by the military facility or, previously, the British authority that ran the territory.
Diego Garcia is seen as having high strategic important because of its location in the heart of the Indian Ocean.
During the US “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks, aircraft were sent directly from the island to carry out missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
