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Britain will wait for Donald Trump’s blessing before finalizing a deal with Mauritius on the future of a strategic UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean, according to people familiar with the talks.
The UK government in recent weeks had been optimistic about securing a deal with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands before the president-elect is sworn in on January 20.
On Sunday, British officials said “good progress” had been made in negotiations after London offered to charge a tranche of payments to Port Louis for the proposed 99-year lease of Diego Garcia, the archipelago’s largest atoll and home to the ruling. defense base.
The Mauritian government will host a special cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss and potentially approve the latest proposals.
However, Britain is no longer pushing for a formal announcement of a deal before the US inauguration unless the deal has received the clear approval of the incoming administration, the people said.
While various different timing scenarios remain in play, confidence has faded among British government figures that a deal will be secured before next Monday.
A senior UK Foreign Office official is in Washington this week for talks touching on the issue with representatives from outgoing President Joe Biden’s team and the incoming Trump team, according to people familiar with the situation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, was critical of the plan last fall, citing concerns that it could strengthen Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, has also raised concerns in the past and has followed the issue closely. In 2022, he warned that negotiations could jeopardize the Diego Garcia naval facility.
However, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MPs in November that US officials at the White House, Pentagon, Defense Department and intelligence agencies had backed the proposal, signaling his belief that Trump and his allies they would also support him after seeing the details.
Trump has not publicly commented on the proposed deal, and it did not come up during his phone conversation with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in late December.
British government figures have long argued privately that the UK was not trying to push the US to back the deal, which concerns the future of the joint military base in Diego Garcia, which is used by aircraft and ships American long-range fighter.
The UK had to return to the negotiating table after Mauritian leader Pravind Jugnauth, with whom an initial deal was reached last October, was ousted in a landslide general election.
His successor, current Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, said the new administration wanted to review the terms of the agreement, which had not been ratified by treaty.
Satyajit Boolell, a former Mauritian director of public prosecutions who is close to the administration, said Britain’s mistake had been to start negotiations with a government on the way out.
“The new government needs to improve the deal,” Boolell said, saying he wanted a shorter lease and more money. After Britain had admitted its “illegal occupation” of the Chagos, he said there was a case for Mauritius to negotiate directly with Washington over the terms of the Diego Garcia lease.
“Negotiations should be between Mauritius and the US. They are occupying Diego Garcia over which we have sovereignty,” he said.
While the last Conservative administration opened negotiations with Mauritius in 2022, after a UN court ruled that the UK had no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, the Conservative party has been highly critical of the proposed deal in recent months.
Priti Patel, the Tory shadow foreign secretary, on Tuesday accused Starmer of “surrendering the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands”, calling the deal “the most shameful failure of British diplomacy this century”.
The Foreign Office said last week: “We believe it is important to move the deal forward quickly, but we have never set a firm date for it.” He added: “We will only finalize a deal that is in the UK’s national interest and within our own and the US’s red lines.”
