Prime Minister Andy Burnham held his first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, an encounter Burnham described as warm even as Trump used it to renew his criticism of Britain's deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Trump called Burnham "a natural business person" during the meeting in New York, but repeated his description of the Chagos agreement as a "terrible deal." Burnham told reporters afterward he was looking to find "common ground" with a president who has called him "a nice guy" but, in the same breath, "unfortunately" a liberal.
A deal under fresh strain
The 2025 agreement, signed under Burnham's predecessor, ceded sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius while securing a 99-year lease allowing the UK and US to keep operating the joint military base on Diego Garcia, at an annual cost to Britain of roughly $136 million. The deal survived a last-minute UK legal challenge before it was signed, but has faced sustained criticism from Conservative opponents and, now, from Washington itself.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed on Wednesday that the government would revisit the agreement, telling the BBC "we have to" review it "because the United States doesn't support it." He said ministers still saw the archipelago's future as inseparable from Western security, describing it as "essential for Britain's national security, American national security and our collective security."
Burnham's own address to the General Assembly focused less on Chagos than on artificial intelligence, arguing that Britain could act as both booster and brake on the technology. "Fundamental decisions on this technology are too important to be left to chance," he told delegates, calling for common global standards and pledging to counter Russian disinformation campaigns.
The Chagos episode illustrates the balancing act facing Burnham, who took office this year and was making his first appearance before Trump as prime minister. Officials in London have spent months trying to reassure Washington that the Diego Garcia base, one of the US military's most important Indian Ocean outposts, remains secure under the new arrangement, an argument Trump's comments suggest has not yet landed.
No timetable has been set for the UK's review, and Mauritius's government has not commented publicly on Trump's remarks. Burnham is expected to face questions on the issue when Parliament returns from its conference recess, with opposition MPs likely to seize on the president's criticism as vindication of their objections to the original deal.
