UK Prime Minister Says US Talks Ongoing Over Chagos Islands Handover

The UK government says the UK–U.S. Diego Garcia military base will remain under long-term British control through a leaseback.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump (R) during a bilateral meeting at the Trump Turnberry Golf Courses, in Turnberry south west Scotland on July 28, 2025. Christopher Furlong/AFP

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Jan. 28 that discussions with the United States are continuing over a deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Speaking to reporters while traveling in China on Jan. 28, Starmer said the issue had been raised repeatedly with the White House in recent days and maintained that the Trump administration had already reviewed and supported the agreement at an agency level.

The comments were made four days after Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Jan. 24, according to a Downing Street readout that made no reference to the Chagos Islands.

A Downing Street spokesman said separately that the UK and the United States were “continuing to work together” to ensure the future operation of the UK–U.S. naval and bomber base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago.

Trump publicly criticized the UK’s decision days earlier, linking it to broader U.S. national security concerns. Trump made the comments in a post on Truth Social, in which he also condemned the UK’s handling of the Diego Garcia base.

The UK agreed in May 2025 to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after decades of legal and diplomatic pressure. The agreement, signed in October 2025, followed years of negotiations and was finalized after consultations with Washington, according to the UK government.

Under the terms of the deal, the Diego Garcia military base would remain under UK control for at least 99 years, ensuring continued access for U.S. forces. The base is regarded by the United States as a critical hub for operations across the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indo-Pacific.

Exchanges With Washington

Asked whether the Chagos Islands had been discussed during his call with Trump, Starmer said the issue had been raised repeatedly with U.S. officials.

“I’ve obviously discussed Chagos with Donald Trump a number of times,” he said. “It has been raised with the White House at the tail end of last week, over the weekend, and into the early part of this week.”

Starmer said the UK had paused the process after Trump returned to office to allow time for a review by the new administration.

“The position, as you know, is that when the Trump administration came in, we paused for three months to give them time to consider the Chagos deal, which they did at agency level,” he said. “Once they’d done that, they were very clear in the pronouncements about the fact that they supported the deal.”

He cited statements made in May 2025 from U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Hegseth said at the time that the deal secures “key U.S. national security interests in the region.” Rubio said in the same month that Trump had “expressed his support for this monumental achievement during his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer at the White House.”

Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago and site of a major U.S. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased from Britain in 1966. File Photo

Pressed on whether Trump fully understood the deal, Starmer declined to comment directly.

“It was an agency review that was conducted in the U.S. before they then concluded that it was a deal they wanted to support, did support and did so in very clear terms,” he said.

Speaking at a press conference in Davos, Switzerland, last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the UK is letting the United States down with the base on Diego Garcia.

He said the two countries had shared the base together “for many, many years, and they want to turn it over to Mauritius.”

“President Trump has made it clear that we will not outsource our national security or our hemispheric security to any other countries,” Bessent said.

UK Political Backlash

Legislation to implement the Chagos treaty is currently in the final stages of parliamentary scrutiny, known as “ping pong,” as amendments are exchanged between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

During a debate in the UK Parliament on Jan. 28, UK opposition Conservatives urged the government to drop the Chagos treaty. Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the agreement was unravelling.

“Labour’s 35 billion pound [$48 billion] Chagos surrender deal is falling apart every single day,” she said, arguing that the plan conflicted with a 1966 UK–U.S. exchange of notes stating that the islands “shall remain under United Kingdom sovereignty.”

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said that the negotiations had been “utterly shambolic” and called on the government to secure “a firm assessment” of the U.S. position before advancing the legislation.

Responding for the government, Foreign Office Minister Seema Malhotra said London opposed the Conservative motion and insisted that the treaty protected British and allied interests.

She said that the deal “guarantees full UK operational control of Diego Garcia for generations to come.” Malhotra also said that the opposition’s cost estimates were “wildly exaggerated” and that government figures had been independently verified.

Malhotra said the UK was in the process of updating the UK–U.S. exchange of notes governing the base and had made “strong progress,” saying that whether any revised agreement would require formal ratification “remains to be determined.”