On February 27, 2025, during a meeting with the British Prime Minister in the Oval Office, he appeared absolutely positive about the agreement to return the Chagos Islands from Britain to Mauritius, stating that he had a “premonition” of success.
Almost a year later, the same man calls the same agreement “an act of stupidity”, linking it to his burning desire. What happened in eleven months that made the American president change his mind?
The Chagos and their history
It is a cluster of seven atolls, with a total of 65 tropical islands that came under British rule in 1814 along with Mauritius, after the Treaty of Fontainebleau which validated Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The islands were separated from Mauritius in 1965 and included in the territory of the British Indian Ocean Territories, retaining the special status of overseas possession.
Then the inhabitants of the largest island, named Diego Garcia, were forcibly removed between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the soldiers of the US military base that became fully operational in 1977.
The strategic importance of the island archipelago has increased over the years, since over the decades the presence of American forces has acted as a counterweight to Washington’s expansionist ambitions in China in the wider Indian Ocean region and as a lever of pressure against Iran and the Houthis. Today, more than 4,000 Americans and British (military and civilian personnel) serve on the island.
In the meantime, Mauritius, which became independent in 1968, did not give up its intention to include the Chagos complex in its own territory, appealing for a number of years to international courts. Finally in 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) ruled in a non-binding decision that the decolonization of Mauritius had not been completed and that “the United Kingdom had an obligation to end its sovereignty over the archipelago”.
An interest of the legal process was the agreement signed between Port Louis and London, which provides for the return of the islands to the sovereignty of Mauritius, with the base of Diego Garcia leased by the British authorities for 99 years, with an annual consideration of 136 million dollars. Forty million is intended to compensate the families of the indigenous inhabitants who left the island.
In Trump’s mind
President Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday (1/20) that “the UK’s extremely important land concession is an act of HUGE STUPIDITY and yet another National Security reason, among many others, that we need to get Greenland,” Trump said. And he added: “Denmark and its European allies must DO THE RIGHT THING. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
A spokesman for the British government emphasized that London “will never compromise on our national security”. “We acted because the Diego Garcia base was under threat following court rulings that undermined our position and would prevent it from operating in the future,” he added.
British opposition criticizes Starmer. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said “Trump is unfortunately right”, calling the deal “lousy”. Likewise, the leader of the far-right Reform, Nigel Farage, thanked … God, saying that “Trump prevented the handover of the Chagos”. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, criticized the British Prime Minister for his condescending attitude and stressed that “appeasing a bully is a tactic that never works”. The leader of the Greens, Zak Polanski, moved in the same spirit.
It is no coincidence that Trump’s high-profile intervention took place a few hours before he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, whose agenda this year is dominated by topics friendly to the development model favored by the US president. The aggressiveness of Trump’s post stems from the White House’s confrontation with Europe over Trump’s stated intention to annex Greenland.
This bravado between Trump and the leaders of countries such as France, Germany and Denmark is not going to leave unscathed even the lukewarm in its rhetoric and conciliatory in terms of the intentions of the government of Keir Starmer. The future of the Chagos Islands is another lever of pressure in this direction. Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s statement that “it is the future of NATO at stake” shows that the stakes go far beyond the Indian Ocean islands.
