How a Year of Trump Changed Britain

The New York Times ^ | Jan. 24, 2026 | Mark Landler

[MinorityRepublican]

Britain has learned, after a roller coaster year that ended in a tense confrontation over Greenland, that it cannot change President Trump. The more tantalizing question is whether Mr. Trump has changed Britain.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s charm offensive toward the president did not spare Britain a fusillade of new tariff threats and stinging social media posts over the British government’s opposition to Mr. Trump’s designs on Greenland. Mr. Starmer might argue that Mr. Trump’s subsequent climb-down validated his emollient approach. Still, Mr. Trump also turned against a deal made by Mr. Starmer, which he had previously endorsed, to relinquish a chain of strategically sensitive islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. He disparaged it as an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY,” handing Mr. Starmer’s opponents a cudgel with which to beat him.

On Wednesday, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, parroted Mr. Trump’s criticism. “This is surrendering British territory, with a strategic military base on it, for no reason whatsoever,” she said to Sky News, referring to the air base on an island in the chain, Diego Garcia, which is jointly operated by Britain and the United States.

Never mind that Britain began negotiating the return of the chain, the Chagos Islands, under a government led by Ms. Badenoch’s Conservatives. Or that Mr. Trump’s pique appeared to be caused less by the loss of the islands than by Mr. Starmer’s refusal to go along with an American takeover of Greenland.

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TOPICS: United Kingdom
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[MalPearce]

I agree with Trump that the Chagos arrangement is bad for the USA.

But this has been in the works since 2019 when the UN General Assembly and the Internationally Court of Justice advised that British colonial occupation should end.

As recently as May 2925, Trump confirmed the official position of the USA was that as long as the UK loss of sovereignty of the Chagos Islands didn’t affect the 99 year lease for Diego Garcia, they didn’t care that the UK would lose ownership.

The problem this mindset creates is if it tacitly confirms that the UK was right to hand back Hong Kong to China, and is right to “hand back” Chagos to Mauritius even though it wasn’t part of Mauritius before... And rinse & repeat for other even more spurious cases.

Where does that logic stop? Should the Falklands be handed over to a country that never settled a single island there throughout all of recorded history, just because their purchase of southern Chile gives them a proximity argument?

Acceptance of these demonstrably bogus anti colonial arguments undermines the case for the USA owning Greenland.

Playing the proximity card, Canada and Iceland have stronger claim to Greenland than the USA. If the USA can still enjoy the lease on Diego Garcia then the existing deal with Denmark is good enough.

So basically the USA should re-evaluate its absurd support for absolutely every Brit bashing “anti colonial” move even when it’s obvious that ending colonial occupation isn’t the motive and by siding with the Brit bashers, they’re actually damaging American interests.

Argentina isn’t trying to address some historical injustice because that injustice never existed. There are dozens of islands that they could’ve settled on. Buenos Aires kept seeing nothing but sheep farming that didn’t interest them. Several islands in the archipelago came up for sale and Argentina never bought any of them. (The third largest island, with beaches and an airstrip, was on the open market ten years ago.)

So why are the Argies so obsessed with taking Port Stanley?

For consistency, the USA needs to say to Argentina, “if you want a bit of the Falklands, just buy it you utter spazzes” as well as saying that Greenland parcels should be up for sale.