The Chagos deal has cemented Britain's global decline |
For a moment, it looked as if this tragic inevitability would not happen. But yesterday evening, Donald Trump gave the green light for Sir Keir Starmer’s disastrous Chagos Islands deal following ‘productive discussions’ between the two leaders. As a result, the UK has moved one step closer to realising its greatest strategic blunder in history. The ceding of a vital British sovereign strategic asset to Mauritius, which so many had tirelessly campaigned to avoid, looks set to become a reality.
For the US president, his decision to back the deal was a volte face from a fortnight ago when he rightly derided the deal as an ‘act of GREAT STUPIDITY’. Trump’s approval reportedly came after numerous pleas from Starmer and his National Security Advisor, Jonathan Powell. Thankfully, Washington’s rubber stamp did not come without a caveat. The deal may have been ‘the best [Starmer] could make’, Trump asserted, but should it ‘fall apart’ or should US security be threatened, then the US will ‘militarily secure and reinforce [its] presence in Diego Garcia’. Beggars cannot be choosers.
Trump knows all too well that no deal is better than a bad deal. One need only look back to his aborted Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February 2019. Trump said he cut the meeting short after North........