Feb 3 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump recognised the “strategic importance” of the U.S.-UK air base in the Chagos Archipelago and will work closely to guarantee its operation, Downing Street said on Tuesday.
Last month, Trump criticised Britain’s 2025 deal to cede sovereignty of the archipelago – including an island with the Diego Garcia base – as an act of “total weakness” and “great stupidity”.
Trump and Starmer spoke on Tuesday and “agreed their governments would continue working closely to guarantee the future operation of the base and speak again soon,” Downing Street said in a statement.
Labour’s Starmer had built a solid relationship with Republican Trump, becoming the first leader to secure a deal to lower some tariffs, but that has been shaken by disagreement over Trump’s ambitions to buy Greenland and the Chagos islands furore.
Washington had last year given its blessing to the deal, which gave the Indian Ocean islands to Britain’s former colony Mauritius but retained UK control of Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the UK statement.
The Chagos’ six main atolls, among more than 600 islands, lie 500 km (300 miles) south of the Maldives and halfway between Africa and Indonesia, with about 4,000 people stationed there.
Britain forcibly displaced up to 2,000 indigenous Chagossians in the late 1960s and 1970s to establish the base on the Diego Garcia atoll.
Recent operations launched from Diego Garcia include bombing strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen in 2024 and 2025 and humanitarian aid deployments to Gaza.
(Reporting by Natalia Bueno Rebolledo in Mexico City and Catarina Demony in London; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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