The Right Way to Handle the Chagos Islands

By John Gustavsson

Saturday, June 13, 2026

 

The White House is reportedly drawing up a proposal to buy the Chagos Islands, currently owned by Britain despite the best efforts of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who for almost two years has attempted to give the islands away for free to Mauritius. On the face of it, this is a positive development: The United States ought to pursue a purchase of the islands. Sadly, the administration’s strategy as we currently understand it is unworkable and risks leaving everyone — except China — worse off.

 

Why should the United States buy the islands? Their strategic importance is obvious: The Diego Garcia base is important in the current war against Iran, just as it was during the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gulf wars before it. While it is a joint base, the United States’s presence is much greater than Britain’s, and given current geopolitics, it is more important to America. U.S. ownership of the islands would prevent the British from ever preventing usage of the base for American Middle Eastern operations of which the British public (or the voters of the Labour Party) disapprove, as happened earlier in the war.

 

Unlike Greenland, the islands have no native population. The population it once had was forcibly relocated when the aforementioned base was built. Since then, they and their descendants have fought for the right to return and have loudly opposed the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius, a country in which Chagossians have long suffered discrimination.

 

Even were it not for their objections, Mauritius holds no legitimate claim to the islands, from which it is more than 1,200 miles removed. While they were part of the same colonial authority, they have never once been part of the same independent country, and their demographics are vastly different (Mauritians being mostly Indian and South Asian, while Chagossians are mostly of African descent).

 

In any case, Britain, in a gesture of goodwill, already paid Mauritius to give up its claim at the time of its independence. Mauritius took the money, kept the claim, and nearly 60 years later somehow convinced Keir Starmer that it was his duty to “decolonize” the Chagos Islands against the will of its former inhabitants, and pay Mauritius for the privilege.

 

Normally, this may have been an internal British matter — yet another example of how the former empire is rapidly descending into a live reenactment of a Monty Python sketch. That is, had it not been for Mauritius’s close relationship with China.

 

Back in January, the White House — after initially giving the deal its blessing — finally intervened after realizing the potential China would have to commit espionage or even sabotage operations at the Diego Garcia base. Starmer was chastised, and while he is still very much committed to ridding Britain of the last of its hard-won imperial holdings, the deal has been in limbo ever since.

 

Had Donald Trump not won the 2024 election, it is almost certain that the islands would have been ceded by now. Purchasing the islands would permanently resolve this threat to U.S. interests. While a future left-wing president might have silently agreed not to veto the transfer, it is highly unlikely that even, say, a President Ocasio-Cortez would hand them over to Mauritius once they were American territory, bought and paid for.

 

Yet the White House plan as proposed contains one fatal flaw: The United States would first allow the U.K. to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Only then would the U.S. be able to purchase the islands.

 

This is problematic for several reasons. First, the likelihood that Mauritius would sell the islands right after finally gaining them is, to put it nicely, small. Mauritius is a democracy, and its government could no more survive selling the Chagos Islands than the Danish government could have survived selling Greenland. While not a wealthy country, Mauritius is also not as desperately poor as some of its fellow African countries on the mainland; its PPP-adjusted GDP per capita is well above the world average.

 

Second, in the unlikely scenario that Mauritius was willing to consider selling, America would almost certainly not be the only bidder. As previously noted, Mauritius’s ties to China are strong and have only grown stronger since Mauritius became the first African country to sign a free trade agreement with China.

 

While China would never contemplate even attempting to buy the islands from Britain — even Keir Starmer would not sell to Beijing — the same would likely not be true once they were in Mauritian hands. America may then find itself in the awkward position of having a military base on Chinese territory. In that scenario, while a full-scale military confrontation may be unlikely, China could easily disrupt operations at the base.

 

Third, British conservatives have spent considerable efforts delaying and rallying public opinion against the deal, including lobbying Washington. To strike a deal with Mauritius, without even first having offered to buy the islands directly from Britain, would be seen as a betrayal by a considerable number of the not-too-many friends America still has in Europe.

 

Would Keir Starmer agree to a sale? Maybe. Turning down a generous offer after making unpopular cuts would be met by serious public backlash. In any case, Starmer looks set to be defeated in a leadership election in the coming months, and so the question should rather be whether his successor would rather pay Mauritius or get paid by the United States.

 

If a settlement with the United States also includes a right for Chagossians — and only Chagossians — to resettle everywhere except Diego Garcia, together with a package to rebuild infrastructure on the long-uninhabited islands to make them suitable for resettlement, any Labour leader could justify the deal by correctly arguing it is better for the Chagossians than what Mauritius offers them: Mauritius has not promised to reserve the right to resettle — or even to be the first in line to resettle — only to Chagossians, and it has not promised them any form of self-government, nor any infrastructure investment (something that would likely require Chinese money).

 

Whatever one deems the likelihood that the British would accept, there should be no delay in the U.S. making an offer. While Keir Starmer appears on his way out, there is still a risk that he, under pressure from Mauritius to rush ratification, could try to finish the process on his way out, a crowning achievement for the former human rights lawyer. If a formal offer from the United States was on the table, whether it is one Starmer agreed with or not, this would be much more difficult.

 

If Britain turned the offer down and ceded the territory to Mauritius anyway, the United States could rightly argue that it gave Britain a chance, and no Brit could then object to it seeking a deal with Mauritius.

 

While the price tag can be debated, a symbolic number might be £10 billion ($13.4 billion), which under Starmer’s deal is the inflation-adjusted price tag that Britain must pay Mauritius. Britain would face a stark choice: To receive, or to pay £10 billion. For a government that is hoping to convince the public to accept budget cuts amidst rising bond yields, it would be a spectacular own goal to give up a free check.

 

Ultimately, buying the Chagos Islands would be a wise strategic move for the U.S. It would lock down the Diego Garcia base, permanently protecting it both from third-worldist infatuated British leaders, as well as from the territorially aggressive Chinese. Yet the White House’s reported plan is both impractical and needlessly risky. Time is of the essence. If the U.S. is to stop Starmer and his government from carrying through this act of geographical self-mutilation, it must make London a public offer as soon as possible.