The White House is considering a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, it has been reported.
US officials are believed to have drawn up a proposal to bypass the UK and make their own deal to take control of Diego Garcia, the report said.
Britain had planned to pass the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius – while maintaining control of the US-UK Diego Garcia military base on a 99-year lease agreement.
A treaty was signed to transfer sovereignty in May 2025, but the UK government paused the handover legislation following fierce opposition from the United States and the onset of war in Iran.
The original Chagos proposal was initially supported by Donald Trump, but the US President changed his stance in January after warning it was an ‘act of great stupidity’.
The US’s new plan to buy the island is among several options being drafted by the White House, the report said.
‘President Trump has been consistent in his position that the United Kingdom should not give away the British Indian Ocean Territory, which includes our joint US-UK military facility on the Diego Garcia atoll,’ a US official said.
‘Diego Garcia’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean makes it a vital and indispensable military installation of significant importance to the national security of the United States.’
The controversial handover of the Chagos Islands, which had been expected to feature in May’s King’s Speech, was delayed indefinitely after the US withdrew its backing. Pictured: An aerial image of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago
The PM was left with little choice but to jettison the plans after Donald Trump’s (pictured) about-turn – having once supported the proposals, the US President warned in January it was an ‘act of great stupidity’ and the US is now reportedly considering buying the islands
The official added that the US remains in regular discussions with Britain to preserve the island’s viability as a regional security platform, the Telegraph reported on Sunday.
The Government’s much-scrutinised decision to cede Chagos was intended to secure the long-term security of the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia – the biggest island in the archipelago.
Officials concluded that without handing over the territory to Mauritius, the military site’s future would be ‘inoperable’ due to a series of legal rulings.
Mauritius’ claim to Chagos, which are 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, is based on a number of United Nations judgments which focus on the illegality of separating the islands from Mauritius when it was still a British colony.
In 2019 that legal position was firmed-up by an ‘advisory opinion’ by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), later cemented by a ruling of the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
With the possibility of these rulings becoming legally binding in the near-future, the Government decided that retaining the Chagos Islands posed a larger threat to UK security than ceding the territory – minus the crucial Diego Garcia base.
Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs on May 22, 2025: ‘Without this deal, within weeks, we could face losing legal rulings and within just a few years the base would become inoperable.’
Mr Trump, once supportive of the deal which would see the UK pay up to £101million a year to lease Diego Garcia, changed his mind after relations soured between the two allies over the Middle East.
A US Air Force B-1B bomber taking off from the Diego Garcia military base in the Chagos Islands on a strike mission against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The UK’s plan to cede the territory was intended to secure the base long-term and preempt any legal rulings against it
In the face of Mr Trump’s disapproval, the Prime Minister was leaned on by MPs in his own party earlier this year to jettison his deal to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton and leader of the Blue Labour parliamentary caucus, said: ‘It’s clear the US administration doesn’t support the Chagos deal, and the government should make the best of a bad situation and finally drop it.’
Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley & Middleton South in Greater Manchester, added: ‘The government should ditch this financially and militarily unjustifiable policy. Hanging on will just lead to further embarrassment for our country.’
Simon McDonald, who was in charge at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when the UK was advised to hand back the Indian Ocean island archipelago to Mauritius, said back in April that the plans would now go ‘into the deep freeze’.
Lord McDonald said: ‘The UK had two objectives. One was to comply with international law. The second was to reinforce the relationship with the United States.
‘But when the President of the United States is openly hostile, the Government has to rethink.’
