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The British government looks headed for a major clash with Donald Trump after ceding control of the Chagos Islands, home of a crucial U.S. military base, to Mauritius.
U.S. President-elect Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Mark Rubio, told POLITICO last month that he fears the deal would boost China and warned the agreement poses “a serious threat” to U.S. national security. The Independent reported Wednesday that Trump’s new team could even try to veto the deal.
Back home, the British government is under mounting pressure from Trump allies and China hawks about the handover, which it has defended as respecting international law and ending a decades-long injustice.
The U.K. agreed to pass sovereignty of the disputed Chagos Islands to Mauritius last month in an agreement hailed as a “seminal moment” by the government in London.
The islands, sometimes dubbed Britain’s last African colony, are home to a joint U.S. and U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean.
Mauritius’ government has long argued it was forced to give the Chagos Islands away in return for its own independence from Britain in 1968. More than 1,000 islanders were forcibly removed at the request of the U.S., with some repeatedly taking the U.K. government to court.
Under the deal, Diego Garcia, the island home to the joint military base, will remain under U.K. and U.S. jurisdiction for at least the next 99 years.
The agreement came after a 2019 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which adjudicates on disputes between nations and said the U.K. was “under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.”
But critics in the U.K. and U.S. argue Britain was under no obligation to respect the advisory opinion, and charge that the government has committed a major tactical blunder that will only embolden China.
Speaking last month before the U.S. election, Florida Senator Rubio said the deal was “concerning as it would provide an opportunity for communist China to gain valuable intelligence on our naval support facility in Mauritius.”
He added: “This poses a serious threat to our national security interests in the Indian Ocean and threatens critical U.S. military posture in the region.”
Alex Gray, former deputy assistant to Trump and ex-chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, said he would not be surprised to see a clash between the U.S. and the U.K. on the deal.
“I think that’s a big concern,” he warned.
‘Most important island on the planet’
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage — who celebrated Trump’s win at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort last week — tried to turn up the heat on the British government in the House of Commons Wednesday.
He warned that Trump’s incoming administration views the handover with “outright hostility” and will try to challenge it.
“Diego Garcia was described to me by a senior Trump advisor as the most important island on the planet as far as America was concerned,” he said.
The Independent reported Wednesday that Trump’s transition team “has requested legal advice from the Pentagon over the agreement” and could seek to kill the deal amid national security concerns.
Responding to Farage for the government in the Commons, Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty stressed that negotiations on the handover were started under the previous Conservative government.
He said the deal showed Britain upholding the international rule of law, and said “robust security arrangements” had been built into the agreement “preventing the presence of foreign security forces on the outer islands.”
“We would not have signed off an agreement that compromised any of our security interests or those of our allies,” he added.
Other British figures are not so sure.
Eddie Lister, a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson as British prime minister, said of the agreement: “I think pressure will come on for us to backtrack on it. Don’t forget no legislation has been put through on it.”
He added: “The pressure will become enormous.”
