❓WHAT HAPPENED: U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the UK government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, calling it an act of “great stupidity.”
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, and the British government.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The controversy centers on the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), with key comments made on Tuesday.
💬KEY QUOTE: “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity.” – Donald Trump
🎯IMPACT: The decision has raised concerns over national security, U.S.-UK relations, and China’s growing influence.
President Donald J. Trump has sharply criticized the United Kingdom’s much-derided decision to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, officially the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius, describing it as “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.” The archipelago includes Diego Garcia, home to a strategically vital joint British-American military base used for air, naval, and intelligence operations in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region.
In a post on Truth Social early Tuesday, Trump condemned the move by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his left-wing Labour Party, writing: “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 added: “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired.” Trump noted that there is “no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. These are International Powers who only recognize STRENGTH,” linking the handover to his broader push for U.S. control over Greenland.
Under its agreement with Mauritius, the British government will cede sovereignty to Mauritius—despite worries about the latter’s growing ties to China—and then lease back the Diego Garcia base for 100 years at exorbitant cost to ensure continued operations. This is despite the fact that Mauritius is thousands of miles from Chagos and has never been sovereign over the archipelago.
While Trump’s comments mark a reversal of his earlier support for the deal, it is widely understood that his administration was highly skeptical of it, and conditional on Britain paying to retain Diego Garcia. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, a longtime ally of Trump who had previously lobbied him to block the deal, welcomed the belated intervention, stating: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.”
A British government spokesman defended the arrangement, claiming, “We acted because the base on Diego Garcia was under threat after court decisions undermined our position and would have prevented it operating as intended in the future… This deal secures the operations of the joint U.S.-UK base on Diego Garcia for generations, with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out.”
In fact, International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings that the islands should be ceded to Mauritius were not legally binding, and even with the expensive lease, Mauritius could render Diego Garcia largely useless by leasing another Chagos island nearby to China or another Western adversary. The decision is likely less to do with the national interest than Labour’s “anti-colonial” ideology, with the British attorney general responsible for negotiating the deal openly despising the “racist” British Empire.
Notably, the Labour government has not addressed the fact that it is transferring Chagos against the wishes of the Chagossians, despite claiming any sale of Greenland would be impossible without the Greenlanders’ consent.
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