Chagos deal to be reworked after Trump criticism

Britain will rework its deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after US President Donald Trump again criticised the agreement, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Wednesday.

The agreement would hand back the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius while Britain pays to lease the strategic US-UK military base on Diego Garcia. Streeting confirmed that annual payments worth at least £120 million, or $159 million, would not be made “at this stage”.

Trump raised the issue Tuesday during his first meeting with Britain's new Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Trump called the agreement “terrible” and said he believed Burnham would reconsider it, while Burnham nodded and said “yep”.

Burnham later said Britain would “work hard” to find a resolution and that he was confident it could do so with US partners.

Streeting told the BBC that Trump's opposition was “not news to us” but that his latest comments gave “absolute clarity” that Trump's position on the Chagos deal as drafted was not changing.

“So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where we can support it,” Streeting said.

Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s and evicted thousands of Chagos islanders, who have since pursued compensation claims in British courts. In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius.

The deal struck under former prime minister Keir Starmer would have given Britain a 99-year lease of the Diego Garcia base, with an option to extend. The UK confirmed in April that it was pausing the plan after opposition from Trump.

James Cartlidge, defence spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said the agreement “should be binned entirely”. Streeting said ignoring the issue was not a wise strategy for “one of the most sensitive national security assets” Britain has.