President Donald Trump has come out against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to cede Diego Garcia, a small island in the Indian Ocean that is also a largely important U.S. military base. Trump called the proposal a “big mistake.” He’s right. Diego Garcia may be tiny, but its strategic importance looms large in a world where the United States and its allies face growing threats.
Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands, and the U.S. shares the military base there with Britain. Under the terms of the deal now in dispute, the United Kingdom intends to grant sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius while maintaining access to the base with a 99-year lease. In theory, this might sound fine. But in practice, it is wholly unacceptable.
On February 18, Trump posted on social media, saying, “DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!” The president noted that he had been telling Starmer that “leases are no good when it comes to countries,” and that the terms of the agreement are “tenuous at best.”
Trump observed that the island is “strategically located” and would be critical in a strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran. “The land should not be taken away from the U.K.,” and “Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason,” he warned. The president accurately described the Starmer government’s decision to forfeit Diego Garcia to “wokeism,” as the decision seems to have been animated by nothing other than a fit of post-colonial guilt. This is so despite the fact that Mauritius has never before had sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, and the islanders themselves want their home to remain a British territory.
President Donald Trump has expressed concerns about the deal before. In January 2026, he called the U.S. military base there “vital” and said that “giving away the extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”
Yet, on February 5, his opposition seemed to have softened as he said that Starmer seemed to have made the best deal “he could make.” But, he warned, “I retain the right to militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia” in the event that “anyone threatens or endangers U.S. forces operations and forces at our base.”
In May 2025, the U.S. State Department “welcomed” the agreement. What had changed?
To understand the reversal, one must understand the origins of the base itself. As Nitya Labh of Chatham House, a British think tank, observed: “The entire concept of a military base on Diego Garcia was conceived and initiated by the U.S., not the U.K., to assert American control in the Indian Ocean.” This was done during the last Cold War, and for good reason.
U.S. naval planners were concerned about American access to overseas bases. With decolonization, war planners worried about losing ground to field weapons to fight far from American shores.
In the 1960s, the U.S. agreed to make payments to the U.K. as part of a joint bid to ensure basing rights for both countries. That is, from the beginning, the project was never just a British one. Consequently, the U.S. has every right to voice its concerns. Recent events have made the need unmistakably clear.
In early February, the U.S. military reportedly used Diego Garcia to carry out operations and seize Russia’s “shadow fleet” vessels carrying sanctioned oil. As Trump noted, the island might be needed to “eradicate a potential attack” by Iran.
The same threats that drove the U.S. and the U.K. to consider Diego Garcia half a century ago not only remain but have grown as America’s strategic position has deteriorated.
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Russia and China are still threats. Yet now the latter is a peer competitor to the U.S., engaged in the largest military buildup in history, producing more ships in 2024 than the U.S. has created in the last eight decades. Instead of being ruled by the pro-U.S. Pahlavi government, today Iran is ruled by a millenarian clique that calls for America’s destruction and seeks nuclear weapons.
America is short on both ships and staging grounds. The U.S. cannot afford to sit by as a key military base is put in jeopardy. Mauritius is a vassal state of China. In today’s world, America needs more strategic opportunities, not fewer. The Trump administration is right to voice its disapproval. The Starmer government should scrap its plans, which would do lasting damage not only to Anglo-American relations but also to shared interests.
