 "An undated file photo shows Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago and site of a major United States military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased from UK in 1966. File Image/Reuters")
If US President Donald Trump would not like the Chagos Islands deal, the United Kingdom would not go ahead with it, according to Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
In October 2024, the UK and Mauritius announced that the UK would transfer the sovereignty of Chagos Islands , a cluster of around 60 islands in the Indian Ocean around 3,000 kilometres from the India, to Mauritius and secure a 99-year lease for the UK-US military base at Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago.
Weeks after the deal was reached, Mauritius had a change of government and the new government of Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam reopened negotiations and sought more money and better terms for the lease. The change of guard in the United States also compromised the deal as Trump is said to be critical of the deal.
Now, ahead of British PM Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to the United States, Foreign Secretary Lammy has said that the deal would be off the table if Trump rejects it.
The US nod to the deal is a must as the base at Diego Garcia is jointly operated by the UK and US militaries.
‘There’s no deal if they’re not happy’
In an interview with ITV News, Lammy defended the Chagos Islands deal, but said that the Trump administration needs to be on board.
Notably, the previous Joe Biden administration was on board with the deal, but the new Trump administration is said to be critical of the deal.
Lammy said, “If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward and the reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal or there is no deal.”
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Lammy said he still believes the arrangement reached with Mauritius is “the best deal” but now that new administrations there and in the United States are relooking at it, it remains to be seen how things go forward.
Lammy said, “We struck a deal after striking that deal, there was a change of government in Mauritius. And the new government in Mauritius had to have time to look at the deal. And there has been a change of government here in the United States and the United States administration have had time to look at the deal. I still believe it’s the best deal.”
Separately, the White House said earlier this month that the Trump administration continued to “review the British government’s agreement with Mauritius and the potential implications for the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia”.
All-round pressure on Starmer over Chagos Islands deal
Starmer is under all-round pressure over the Chagos Islands deal: from Mauritius for better terms, the criticism from Conservatives, the threat of international laws complicating operations at the deal, and from the Trump administration about the feasibility of the deal.
Critics of the deal have said that giving away the islands would harm British and Western security interests in the Indo-Pacific. They have said that military and intelligence presence in the islands is critical to check Chinese designs in the region , but the Starmer government has said that sovereignty of the islands needs to be settled in the wake of advesarial international judgements for the continued operations of satellites needed to run the Diego Garcia military base.
ALSO READ: Control of military satellite system key driver of Chagos Islands deal, says UK
For both strategic and economic reasons, the Chagos deal has been slammed.
While the specifics have not been revealed, reports have said that the UK is supposed to pay £90 million per year for the lease, which would come to be around £9 billion in total. But the new Muaritian government has demanded more money with reports saying that it demanded up to £800 million a year with annual adjustments for inflation every year along with reparations. This may inrease the cost of the deal by several hundreds of million if not billions.
Dame Priti Patel, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has previously called the deal “economically illiterate”.
“At a time when public spending is under serious pressure, they are also signing up to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money leasing back a site that is currently under our sovereignty. And to add insult to injury, they are doing all this in secret, with Labour ministers keep refusing to explain the details to Parliament and the British public. They must urgently come clean on what exactly this surrender is going to cost us,” said Patel.