Trump blasts U.K. plan to transfer island with U.S. Navy base as ‘great stupidity’

President Trump denounced U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan on Tuesday to hand over control of the Chagos Archipelago, home of a vital U.S. military base in the central Indian Ocean, to the nation of Mauritius.

Mr. Trump slammed the decision as an “act of total weakness” on his Truth Social account, about eight months after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said approvingly that the agreement secures the long-term operation of Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia.

“The U.K. 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,” Mr. Trump wrote, linking the issue of tiny Diego Garcia to the giant Arctic island located on nearly opposite sides of the Earth.

He said there was no doubt that China and Russia were aware that the U.K. was ceding a chain of islands once called the British Indian Ocean Territory to a country about 1,300 miles away.

“These are international powers who only recognize strength, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like never before,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Nicknamed the “Footprint of Freedom” by the U.S., Diego Garcia serves as a logistics hub and platform for projecting power in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Strategic bombers like the B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress regularly launch missions out of Diego Garcia. 

It also has a deep port capable of berthing large warships such as aircraft carriers.

Under the agreement signed in May, Mauritius will be given control of the islands, with the United Kingdom paying an average of $136 million a year to lease back Diego Garcia for 99 years and maintain the military base. Mr. Starmer and his Labor Government argued that the move is necessary to avoid a messy legal fight.

Last May, Mr. Starmer said the deal was necessary to preserve the Diego Garcia base, calling it critical for both countries’ counterterrorism and intelligence efforts.

“By agreeing to this deal now on our terms, we’re securing strong protections, including from malign influence, that will allow the base to operate well into the next century, helping to keep us safe for generations to come,” Mr. Starmer told reporters at the time.

Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said the agreement has at least two “time bombs” that will likely guarantee its eventual demise. 

“If the British skip one payment, the lease is terminated. It’s very hard to see how over the next 99 years you won’t have one British administration that decides to skip a payment,” Ms. Paskal said in an interview with The Washington Times. 

Mauritius is a signatory to the African Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone agreement, known as the Treaty of Pelindaba. The moment that the agreement to transfer control of the Chagos Islands is made, the U.S. would be in contravention of the nuclear-free treaty, Ms. Paskal said.

“This was not an oversight by the British negotiators. They knew what they were doing,” she said. “The question is ‘why.’”

Diego Garcia is the only U.S. outpost in the Indian Ocean region. If the base was compromised, the entire Indo-Pacific region would be put at risk, Ms. Paskal said.

“That includes democracies that are not capable of protecting themselves against a massive Chinese onslaught,” she said.

In Britain, the Chagos Islands agreement is currently being shuttled between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Opponents include Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, and Nigel Farage of the Reform Party.

“Paying to surrender the Chagos Islands is not just an act of stupidity, but of complete self-sabotage,” Ms. Badenoch said Tuesday on X. “Keir Starmer’s plan to give away the Chagos Islands is a terrible policy that weakens U.K. security and hands away our sovereign territory.”

The Reform Party vehemently opposed the Chagos Islands agreement, calling it an act of “complete self-sabotage” that sacrifices the U.K.’s national interests for post-colonial guilt.

The British displaced as many as 2,000 people from Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 1970s so the U.S. military could build the base. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have pressured the United Kingdom to cede control of the archipelago to Mauritius.

Ms. Paskal said some members of the House of Lords are pushing for a referendum that would seek input from the local population before any agreement over the future of the Chagos Islands is ratified.

“Keir Starmer publicly supports self-determination abroad but has failed to uphold that principle for the Chagossian people,” a group calling itself the Chagos Islands Government in Exile said Monday in a statement. “We call on him to stop the Chagos deals, defend British sovereignty, and secure justice for the Chagossians.”

Mr. Starmer wanted Parliament to sign off on the Chagos Islands treaty by the end of January. Mr. Trump’s social media post slamming the agreement made its future much less certain, Ms. Paskal said.

She said Mr. Trump’s intervention is the only thing that might actually give the Chagossian people the chance to have a voice in their own future.

“This issue won’t be dead until the Chagossian people have a referendum,” she said. “The chances are, according to the assessments that have already been made, that they would vote to stay British. And then it will be dead.”