UK confirms review of Chagos Islands deal after Trump's UN criticism

Streeting says reopened review is driven by US opposition to handover

UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed on Wednesday that the government is reviewing its agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, attributing the move to US President Donald Trump’s renewed criticism of the deal at the United Nations General Assembly the day before. “We have to” review the deal, Streeting told BBC Breakfast.

The defence secretary described Trump’s Tuesday remarks — in which the president called the arrangement “terrible” — as providing “absolute clarity” that the US position on the deal “as currently drafted is not changing.” He said the UK would need to do “more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where we can support it.”

The original agreement, negotiated under former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government, would see the UK cede sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius while retaining use of a joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the chain. Under the terms, the UK would pay Mauritius an average of £101 million ($136 million) per year to lease back the base.

The deal was paused indefinitely in April after the Trump administration withdrew its support. Streeting’s Wednesday comments made explicit what the April pause had left implicit — that the arrangement’s viability depends on Washington’s backing.

Trump has opposed the Chagos handover since before the April pause. His September 22 UN General Assembly remarks, in which he described the deal as “terrible,” echo criticism Trump has directed at the arrangement since before the pause, and which Streeting on Wednesday acknowledged was “not new.”

Streeting did not outline a specific timeline for the renewed review or indicate whether the deal’s substantive terms would be renegotiated. His comments focused on the need to secure terms Washington can accept, suggesting that the question of whether the handover proceeds at all is now contingent on US-UK alignment.

The reopened review is the first formal acknowledgment since the April pause that the UK intends to revisit the arrangement, and underscores how central Washington’s position has become to the deal’s prospects. The Diego Garcia base, prized for its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, is central to the calculation: ceding sovereignty while retaining use through a lease is the mechanism that keeps the joint UK-US base operational under the original arrangement.

Streeting’s confirmation leaves open whether the UK will seek to renegotiate the lease terms with Mauritius or pursue an entirely separate arrangement with Washington. His remarks made clear that any final agreement must meet conditions the Trump administration is prepared to accept.