{"id":437118,"date":"2026-02-21T01:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/437118\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:58:09","slug":"boris-johnson-lobbied-donald-trump-to-block-uks-chagos-islands-deal-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/437118\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Johnson lobbied Donald Trump to block UK\u2019s Chagos Islands deal \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Representatives for Johnson and Truss declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Act of stupidity\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s position on the Chagos deal has flipped multiple times in recent weeks. He first came out against the \u201cact of GREAT STUPIDITY\u201d on Jan. 20, in what British officials believed was linked to Starmer criticizing his threats to seize Greenland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After the PM led a diplomatic operation to get Trump back on board, the president conceded on Feb. 5 that it was the <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116019287824035088\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">best deal<\/a> Starmer could\u2019ve made. But Trump unleashed his latest attack on the policy on his \u201cTruth Social\u201d platform on Feb. 18.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.K., the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/politics\/article\/trump-chagos-islands-deal-iran-attack-british-bases-kcj0gzbr8?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqcgrkNMWy87MZ8IuDN5ZnFOC-7kS_8yYh3-yaDtv4IKRMgsqz7vhIeQgB0594Q%3D&amp;gaa_ts=69985cb8&amp;gaa_sig=uHGBMCJ6SPQusVrpDYIPa24z8Rmyeld-hFhaY4-kzBOBdTc4v0f1EWixPLUbjkhOYuqW3Rh4Z_1liI7CAZbuvw%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Times reported<\/a> that the backdrop was another trans-Atlantic rift over Trump\u2019s request to allow American planes to use British bases to attack Iran in the event of any conflict, with Britain assessing such a move would be in breach of international law.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s latest Truth Social blast did link a possible use of Diego Garcia for an attack on Iran. He also appeared to get into greater detail on the specifics of the Chagos debate than before, including knowledge of the lease agreement for the Diego Garcia base and allusions to decisions made against Britain by international bodies in the long-running colonial dispute.<\/p>\n<p>Former U.K. Conservative Leader Iain Duncan Smith held meetings in D.C. last week, including with White House and Department of Defense officials. Christopher Howarth, a former U.K. government adviser to the Conservatives who\u2019s now with the Reform-linked Centre for a Better Britain think tank, also got time with the administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Representatives for Johnson and Truss declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[824,140,8926,141,2992,59,57,58,6232,99275,585,420,12174,466,6235,36027,151,2363,50,633,998,1351,473,56,54,158,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-437118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-boris-johnson","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-department","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-foreign-policy","13":"tag-gb","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-greatbritain","16":"tag-greenland","17":"tag-iain-duncan-smith","18":"tag-iran","19":"tag-keir-starmer","20":"tag-kemi-badenoch","21":"tag-liz-truss","22":"tag-lobbying","23":"tag-mauritius","24":"tag-military","25":"tag-negotiations","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-nigel-farage","28":"tag-platforms","29":"tag-security","30":"tag-tanks","31":"tag-uk","32":"tag-united-kingdom","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}