The United States government has drafted a highly ambitious diplomatic proposal that could fundamentally reshape geopolitics in the Indian Ocean. On Sunday, June 7, 2026, The Telegraph reported that the White House is actively considering a plan to purchase the Chagos Islands directly from Mauritius. This extraordinary proposal aims to bypass the United Kingdom entirely, allowing Washington to negotiate its own direct deal and take full, permanent control of Diego Garcia. The island hosts a highly critical joint US-UK military facility that American commanders view as indispensable for conducting global security operations.
The strategic value of Diego Garcia has surged in recent months due to ongoing military escalations across West Asia. The remote airbase puts critical adversaries within striking distance and supports long-range bomber operations, including heavy B-2 stealth missions. To maintain the viability of Diego Garcia as a regional security platform, White House national security officials drafted the purchase option in a confidential options paper. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently presented this proposal directly to President Donald Trump, who has reportedly expressed keen interest in securing permanent American sovereignty over the territory.
This new American strategy aims to derail a highly controversial agreement that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government pursued last year. Under that original deal, which negotiators signed on May 22, 2025, the UK agreed to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands archipelago to Mauritius. In return, the UK would have paid Mauritius an average of $136 million per year to lease back Diego Garcia. This lease would have allowed both British and American forces to operate the shared naval and bomber base for at least 99 years. However, the deal faced intense opposition from Washington because it failed to guarantee long-term security.
The proposed UK-Mauritius deal hit a major roadblock in January 2026 when President Trump withdrew US support for the treaty. Trump criticized the agreement on social media, calling the decision to cede the territory an act of great stupidity that endangered global security. Many US policymakers and Republican senators shared Trump’s concerns, arguing that Mauritius maintains close diplomatic and economic ties with Beijing. They feared that Mauritius could sign a defense agreement granting China maritime access to Chagos waters, or eventually sell the islands to Beijing at a higher price, giving the Chinese military a massive strategic victory.
Following Trump’s public opposition and the official withdrawal of US diplomatic support, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government suffered a major political blow. In April 2026, Westminster officially put the required legislation to hand over the Chagos Islands on hold. While Downing Street officials insisted that they remained committed to resolving the issue, they acknowledged that they could not move forward without the formal consent of their closest ally. This legislative suspension created a diplomatic vacuum, prompting the Trump administration to draft unilateral alternatives to protect American defense interests.
The White House options paper presents the direct purchase of Chagos as a clean, definitive solution to the diplomatic impasse. By bypassing London, Washington would directly offer Mauritius a multi-billion-dollar buyout package to secure permanent ownership of the islands. This move would remove the United Kingdom from the security equation and establish a direct sovereign relationship between the US and Mauritius. Although the White House and the UK Foreign Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, a US official confirmed that Washington is exploring all legal avenues to preserve the island’s military viability.
Any potential transfer of sovereignty also carries massive implications for the indigenous inhabitants of the archipelago, the Chagossians. Between 1967 and 1973, British and American authorities forcibly expelled nearly 2,000 Chagossians from their ancestral homelands to make way for the military base on Diego Garcia. Since then, the displaced islanders have waged a decades-long legal battle in British courts demanding their right to return. In late March 2026, the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territory handed the UK government a crushing blow by blocking a removal order, allowing Chagossian activists to resettle on the islands temporarily.
As diplomatic tensions rise, the White House’s plan to buy the Chagos Islands has introduced a major point of friction into US-UK relations. If President Trump aggressively pursues this buyout, it will represent one of the most assertive uses of American economic power to secure military assets since the end of the Cold War. For Downing Street, the proposal highlights the growing difficulty of managing strategic territories in an era of heightened superpower competition. Until Washington and London resolve their differences over Diego Garcia, the future of this vital Indian Ocean outpost will remain a major source of debate in global security.
