By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A startled British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the plan, which his administration had previously supported.

Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after arriving at Palm Beach International Airport, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

“Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” he said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.”

“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” Trump said.

The blast from Trump was a rebuff to efforts by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to calm tensions over Greenland and patch up a frayed trans-Atlantic relationship. Starmer on Monday called Trump’s statements about taking over Greenland “completely wrong,” but called for the rift to be “resolved through calm discussion.”

Remote but strategic

The United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the Chago Islands after two centuries under British control, though the U.K. will lease back Diego Garcia where the U.S. base is located, for at least 99 years.

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The U.S. government welcomed the agreement at the time, saying it “secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint U.S.-U.K. military facility at Diego Garcia.”

U.K. Cabinet Minister Darren Jones said Tuesday that the agreement would “secure that military base for the next 100 years.”

In recent years, the United Nations and its top court have urged Britain to return the islands to Mauritius, and the British government says it’s acting to protect the security of the base from international legal challenge.

A government spokesperson said that “the U.K. will never compromise on our national security,” and “this deal secures the operations of the joint U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia for generations, with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out.”

But the deal has met strong opposition from British opposition parties, which say that giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.

Islanders who were displaced from the islands to make way for the U.S. base say they weren’t consulted and worry the deal will make it harder for them to go home.

Strong opposition

Legislation to approve the agreement has been passed by the House of Commons, but faced strong opposition in Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, which approved it, while also passing a “motion of regret” lamenting the legislation. It’s due back in the Commons on Tuesday for further debate.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch criticized Starmer’s Labour Party government over the agreement.

Badenoch said in an X post that Trump is right and that Starmer’s “plan to give away the Chagos Islands is a terrible policy that weakens UK security and hands away our sovereign territory. And to top it off, makes us and our NATO allies weaker in the face of our enemies.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, an ally of the president said: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.”

The U.S. has described the Diego Garcia base, which is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

The Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814, when they were ceded by France. Britain split the islands away from Mauritius, a former British colony, in 1965, and evicted as many as 2,000 people from the islands so the U.S. military could build the Diego Garcia base.

An estimated 10,000 displaced Chagossians and their descendants now live primarily in Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Some have fought unsuccessfully in U.K. courts for many years for the right to go home.

The U.K.-Mauritius deal calls for a resettlement fund to be created for displaced islanders to help them move back to the islands — apart from Diego Garcia.