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Britain's Chagos deal put on hold after Trump calls it 'terrible' in first meeting with Burnham

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has confirmed the UK's deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius "can't go ahead without American support", putting annual payments to Mauritius worth at least £120 million a year on hold.

By Sarah Whitfield · · 1 min read

Aerial view of Diego Garcia atoll in the Chagos Islands, with the joint UK-US military base runway visible along the western arm.
Photo: U.S. Navy (released), via Wikimedia Commons · source

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has confirmed the UK’s deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius “can’t go ahead without American support”, putting the agreement on hold after Donald Trump branded it “terrible” and “ridiculous” at his first meeting with Andy Burnham.

Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday that multimillion-pound annual payments to Mauritius — at least £120 million a year — would not be made “at this stage”: “We’ve got to get to a point where we can agree a deal.”

Trump made the remarks at his first face-to-face meeting with Burnham on the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday: “I don’t support it. I think it’s a terrible deal… I think it’s ridiculous,” he said, calling Diego Garcia “a very important piece of real estate, militarily and strategically”.

Burnham said he had “inherited the situation” and that the government would “work hard” to find a “resolution between the different sides”. Streeting insisted the government had not abandoned the principle of handing the islands back, telling Times Radio an agreement still needed to be reached: “Yes.”

Under the treaty signed in May 2025, Britain would cede sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius while leasing back the Diego Garcia base for 99 years — paying £165 million a year for the first three years, then £120 million from year four.

Sources

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