Chagos discussions with US continue, says Starmer

The prime minister has said that discussions are ongoing with the United States over a controversial deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, amid concerns the US could withdraw support for the agreement.

Under the deal, which the US backed last year, the UK would transfer sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius and lease back a joint UK-US military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

Ministers insist the deal is necessary to protect the base from "malign interests", but last week President Trump called it "an act of great stupidity".

The Conservatives have accused the government of undermining national security because of Mauritius's close ties to China.

Speaking to reporters while travelling to Beijing, Sir Keir Starmer said he had discussed it with Donald Trump "a number of times" and said the issue had been "raised with the White House at the tail end of last week, over the weekend and into the early part of this week".

The prime minister said the Trump administration had been given three months to look at the deal last year and had concluded it "was a deal they wanted to support, did support and did so in very clear terms", after a review by US intelligence agencies.

US support was thrown into doubt last week when Trump said on social media that he was "against" the deal.

Hours later, Downing Street said it believed the US still supported the deal, despite the president's comments.

Those around Sir Keir believed that the president was simply using the issue to put pressure on the UK over the Greenland row, and did not think that Trump had actually changed his mind on Chagos.

But the following morning, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also criticised the deal and accused the UK of "letting us down" by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius.

Officials inside the Foreign Office are thought to be more concerned about Bessent's comments than they were about Trump's social media post – and Downing Street has since declined to repeat its claim that the US still supports the deal.

It's understood there has not been an official approach from the US to the UK about a change of position on the Chagos deal, but there is some concern in Whitehall that such an approach could happen in the future.

The Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814 and became formally established as an overseas territory in 1965, but Mauritius has argued that it was illegally forced to give the islands away.

In 2021 a United Nations court ruled that the UK had no sovereignty over the islands, a decision which eventually led to negotiations over this deal.

The deal would see the UK lease back Diego Garcia for a period of 99 years, at an average cost of £101m a year.

The US initially agreed to the deal in May 2025, but one source involved in those negotiations says the Trump administration was "never enthusiastic" and "just decided then to go along with it".

Last year, the then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: "If President Trump doesn't like the deal, the deal will not go forward."

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs on Monday that UK officials "remain engaged with the United States on a daily basis".

It has also emerged that a 1966 treaty signed by the US and the UK would have to be updated for the deal to be completed.

Those inside government are refusing to share details of how that treaty could be updated, but the Conservatives believe it would effectively give the US an opportunity to veto the entire deal.

Foreign Office officials do not believe that is the case, but Doughty declined to answer when asked in the House of Commons whether that treaty could be updated unilaterally by the UK.

The source involved in negotiations between the UK and US said the 1966 treaty had not been discussed during those talks.

They said: "To have overlooked it and not realised its importance is the most monumental piece of incompetence."

The deal also needs approval from Parliament, but a debate in the House of Lords was postponed this week after the Conservatives raised the issue of the 1966 treaty.

A government source said they wanted it to return to Parliament as quickly as possible, but said it wasn't yet known when that would be.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the deal wasn't in the interests of the UK or the US and said she had spoken to the US ambassador Warren Stephens and the speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson.

Reform UK is also against the deal and party sources say Nigel Farage has personally discussed the issue with President Trump, Scott Bessent, JD Vance and other members of the administration.