Trump threatens the United Kingdom to use the Diego García atoll in Chagos for an eventual attack against Iran

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened this Wednesday the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, with using the Diego García Atoll, the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago, for a possible attack against Iran if Tehran does not close an agreement with Washington on its Iranian nuclear program.

“Our relationship with the United Kingdom is strong and powerful, and has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important island due to claims from entities never before known,” he expressed on social networks.

The Republican magnate has argued that if Iran does not close an agreement with the United States on its nuclear program, it will be forced to use Diego García, in the waters of the Indian Ocean, and the airfield located in Fairford to “eradicate a possible attack by a highly unstable and dangerous regime.”

Trump has thus assured that “leases are not good” and that Starmer “is making a big mistake.” “This land must not be taken from the United Kingdom and if it is allowed to be, it will be a plague on our great ally,” he said, reiterating that the agreement with Chagos is based on claims “of a fictitious nature.”

This comes just hours after the State Department led by Marco Rubio supported the United Kingdom’s agreement with Mauritius to return to the African country the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago and reiterated its desire to “conclude a bilateral agreement” with London to “guarantee the continued use of military facilities and other infrastructure” in the area.

Starmer already assured a month ago that Trump’s criticism of the agreement had the “express purpose” of exerting “pressure” on him to change the British position regarding Greenland. “He wants me to give in my position and I’m not going to do it,” he stressed.

The agreement between Mauritius and the United Kingdom was signed in October 2024, years after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that London must end “as quickly as possible its administration of Chagos, from which the entire population was expelled after the colonization of the archipelago by the British.

The pact contemplates that Mauritius would recover the sovereignty of the archipelago, including Diego García, while the parties committed to guarantee the long-term operation of the aforementioned military base, managed jointly by London and Washington, for an initial period of 99 years.