President Donald Trump excoriated the British government in a Truth Social Post on Monday for agreeing to relinquish sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, a strategic military location, to Mauritius. The Chagos Islands contain the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, a military base leased by the U.K. to the U.S. and used jointly by both countries. Located in the center of the Indian Ocean, the islands are considered strategically valuable. “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,” Trump said in the post. Brent Sadler, a senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that Trump was right to oppose the Chagos deal for strategic reasons. “President Trump is keenly aware of the military and strategic implications of losing unfettered access and unencumbered by nearby Chinese presence of the base at Diego Garcia,” Sadler wrote in an email. “While a deal over Chagos which includes Diego Garcia is still a possibility, it is clear the one being proposed in London is not THAT deal,” he said. The president said that China and Russia see this as an act of “total weakness.” Trump connected the U.K.’s Chagos Island deal to his calls to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “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 wrote. Trump’s post triggered commentary by a number of British and American political figures. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent connected the Chagos issue to Trump’s desire to purchase Greenland. .@SecScottBessent: "@POTUS just believes that the U.S. needs Greenland because no-one will make a move on it then…we share a military facility on an island called Diego Garcia, and the U.K. is giving that island to Mauritius, and guess who is behind Mauritius? The Chinese!" https://t.co/mILUtwhjgo pic.twitter.com/llFbYiofOE— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 20, 2026 The U.K.’s Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch called the Chagos deal “not just an act of stupidity, but of complete self sabotage.” Paying to surrender the Chagos Islands is not just an act of stupidity, but of complete self sabotage.I’ve been clear and unfortunately on this issue President Trump is right. Keir Starmer’s plan to give away the Chagos Islands is a terrible policy that weakens UK security and… https://t.co/EgNPMyzJEQ pic.twitter.com/yrBl5uFuJR— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) January 20, 2026 Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage said, “thank goodness” Trump will veto the Chagos deal. Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) January 20, 2026 While U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer wasn’t mentioned in Trump’s post, it was clearly aimed at his administration. Starmer’s government signed the agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in May. The deal would allow the British government to lease the land for the Diego Garcia base for 99 years, but would cost the government tens of billions of pounds. A U.K. government spokesperson said in response to Trump, according to ABC news, that Britain “will never compromise on our national security,” and that the deal was signed “because the base on Diego Garcia was under threat after court decisions undermined our position and would have prevented it operating as intended in future.” The deal was highly criticized at the time as a surrender of British territory with little benefit. The United Nations’ International Court of Justice has called the islands an integral part of Mauritius. However, Mauritius has never owned the Chagos Islands since its independence from the U.K. in 1968, and the indigenous Chagossian people have largely been opposed to the deal. And as Sadler noted, Mauritius has deep ties with China. In a joint editorial written for the British Telegraph in early January, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Nile Gardiner, Heritage’s Barbara Lomas fellow, wrote about how the Chagos deal would be a huge win for the Chinese Communist Party. “The looming handover of the Chagos Islands is a massive coup for Communist China, which has long coveted a foothold in the region. There can be no doubt that Beijing will use this golden opportunity to advance its own interests at America’s and the UK’s expense,” Roberts and Gardiner wrote. They noted that “Mauritius will have full sovereignty over the Islands, and could offer China its own base on Chagos in close proximity to Diego Garcia, with endless opportunities for spying on U.S. and British military activities.” They added that Mauritius “could also sign a defense agreement with Beijing granting China access to the waters around the Chagos Islands, making the base at Diego Garcia practically impossible to operate for the United States.” The post ‘GREAT STUPIDITY’: Trump Blasts UK’s Chagos Islands Deal as Proof US Needs Greenland appeared first on The Daily Signal.