Trump praises Burnham - but hits out at ‘terrible’ Chagos deal

Andy Burnham is set to review the Chagos Islands deal after it was branded “terrible” and “ridiculous” by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump said US-UK relations are “more up” with Andy Burnham as prime minister following their first meeting, but he slammed the Chagos Islands deal as “terrible” and suggested that his counterpart was going to review the policy.

The US president made the remarks after his first face-to-face talks with Mr Burnham , which took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday,

In a largely warm shared press conference , the president praised Mr Burnham as a “natural business person” and the former mayor of Greater Manchester said he had “established a good connection” with Mr Trump.

The prime minister said that the pair had “taken that further today” as they discussed trade, energy and immigration among other topics during their 40-minute meeting.

Mr Trump told reporters: “I think right now, based on my relationship with your prime minister, Andy, I think we’re doing very well.”

Asked about relations with the UK, the president added: “They are more up now than they were with your last prime minister, let me put it that way.”

Despite their warm words towards one another, Mr Trump was critical of the UK’s handling of the Chagos Islands , leaving the deal in doubt.

The president described it as a “very important piece of real estate, militarily and strategically” for both the UK and America.

A joint US-UK military base is located on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia , which Britain would lease from Mauritius under the £3.4 billion deal.

Mr Trump branded the agreement to hand sovereignty of the Indian Ocean islands to Mauritius as a “terrible deal”, and said that the prime minister was “going to be looking at it”.

Asked by the BBC, he dodged the question, saying it was an agreement he had inherited “and we need a resolution”.

He added: “It's critical to safeguard the future of the base, and that matters to us for security reasons, but also clearly to the United States as well. So what I said in the meeting is that we will work to find that resolution between the different sides, and we'll work hard to find it. It was clear that we need to come to that agreement, but I'm confident we can find it working with our US partners.”

He also said he had raised the sovereignty of Falkland Islands with the US president, weeks after Trump suggested the US would not come to the UK’s aid if Argentina invaded again.