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Britain will await Donald Trump’s blessing before finalising a deal with Mauritius over the future of a strategic UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean, according to people familiar with the talks.
The UK government had in recent weeks been optimistic about securing an agreement with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands before the president-elect is sworn into office on January 20.
On Sunday, British officials said “good progress” had been made in the negotiations after London offered to frontload a tranche of payments to Port Louis for the proposed 99-year lease of Diego Garcia, the largest atoll in the archipelago and home to the crucial defence 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 pressing for the formal announcement of a deal before the US inauguration unless the agreement has gained the explicit approval of the incoming administration, the people said.
While various different timing scenarios remain in play, confidence has faded among British government figures that the deal will be secured before next Monday.
A senior UK Foreign Office official is in Washington this week for talks touching on this issue with representatives from both the 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 request for comment.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, was critical of the plan last autumn, citing concerns that it could bolster Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, has also raised concerns in the past and has been keenly following the issue. In 2022, he warned the negotiations could jeopardise the Diego Garcia naval facility.
However, UK foreign secretary David Lammy told MPs in November that US officials spanning the White House, Pentagon, Department of Defense and intelligence agencies had backed the proposal, signalling his confidence that Trump and his allies would also throw their support behind it after seeing the details.
Trump has not commented publicly on the proposed deal and it did not come up during his phone call with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in late December.
British government figures have long argued privately that the UK was not trying to bounce the US into backing the deal, which concerns the future of the joint military base on Diego Garcia, which is used by US long-range bomber aircraft and warships.
The UK had to return to the negotiating table after the Mauritian leader Pravind Jugnauth, with whom an initial deal was agreed last October, was ousted from office in a landslide general election.
His successor, the 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 that was on its way out.
“The new government has to improve the deal,” said Boolell, saying it wanted both a shorter lease and more money. Once Britain had conceded its “illegal occupation” of the Chagos, he said there was a case for Mauritius negotiating directly with Washington over the terms of the lease on Diego Garcia.
“The negotiation 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 Tory party has been highly critical of the proposed deal in recent months.
Priti Patel, shadow Tory foreign secretary, on Tuesday accused Starmer of “surrendering 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 progress the deal quickly but have never put an exact date on it”. It added: “We will only finalise a deal that is in the UK’s national interest and within our and US red lines.”
