The President’s latest post comes hours after the US Government supported the deal to cede sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius
Donald Trump has again attacked the UK’s Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius, telling Sir Keir Starmer he is ‘making a big mistake’ by ceding the archipelago to Mauritius.
The US president warned the Prime Minister that the deal risks the future of the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Britain is currently leasing the base on a 99-year deal from the government of Mauritius, which was agreed by Starmer in 2024.
The deal saw the UK transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and was welcomed by the US government as a “historic agreement” at the time.
But President Trump has expressed his disapproval with the treaty on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social: “Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but prime minister [sic] Starmer is losing control of this important Island [sic] by claims of entities never known of before.
“In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”
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This post from Trump comes just hours after the US government said it supports the deal the Starmer government struck. Picture: Truth Social
Trump went on to say that if Iran and the US do not make a deal to prevent the Middle Eastern state from acquiring nuclear weapons, “it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia”, as well as RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
He said the bases would be used to “eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime [sic] — An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries”.
Trump continued: “Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease.
“This land should not be taken away from the U.K. and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the U.K., but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them.
“DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”
Trump’s post comes just two hours after the US Government said it supported Starmer’s Chagos deal.
The Chagos Islands are made up of more than 600 islands lying in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia. Picture: Getty
A spokesperson for the US State Department said overnight: “The United States supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago.
“The United States reiterates its desire to conclude a bilateral agreement with the United Kingdom to guarantee continued use of basing and other facilities in the Chagos archipelago to advance U.S. national security, as well as security and stability across the Indian Ocean.”
Kim Darroch, the Ambassador to the United States between 2016 and 2019, told LBC: “This is the third or maybe even the fourth variation of Donald Trump’s views on Chagos. He’s gone backwards and forwards several times, and I don’t know what precipitates these changes of mood.”
“It also depends whether Keir Starmer has done anything that’s annoyed him.”
He pointed out that the cost to the UK is the same as the Americans and the French pay for their bases in the region.
“It’s not wonderful, but it’s the best deal we can do.”
The Chagos Islands, made up of more than 600 islands lying in the Indian Ocean, has served as a key military base of the US and Britain since the early 1970s.
The islands were a dependency of Mauritius when it was a French colony, but the UK claimed them as part of Mauritius in the early 19th Century and kept them beyond the country’s independence in 1968.
Sovereignty negotiations with Mauritius began under the Conservative government in 2022.
However, talks were halted a year later after a paper by three academics said transferring the islands would be a “major self-inflicted blow”.
Two years later, with Labour now in power, Starmer completed the agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Islands to the Mauritian government.
As part of the deal, which is set to cost the UK £30bn, Mauritius had the right to ban other powers from using the islands around Diego Garcia without agreement from the House of Commons.
Trump initially joined Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India expressed his support of Starmer’s deal back in February 2025.
But he U-turned on this backing in January, telling the UK leader that giving away the land was “an act of great stupidity” and that the decision was taken for “no reason whatsoever”.
Following a phone call with Starmer on February 5, Trump begrudgingly said he understood that the deal was “the best” the PM could make.
However, he added that if there was any threat to the military base, then he retained the right to “militarily secure” it.
Downing Street is yet to respond to Trump’s latest comments, but Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch took to X to agree with the US president and label the Chagos deal an “act of great stupidity”.
She added: “Paying £35bn to surrender the islands is complete self-sabotage. Chagos is a strategic asset.
“If our closest ally is saying this, the PM should listen.
“It’s time to kill this terrible deal.”
