White House Weighs Chagos Islands Plan Without United Kingdom
The White House is contemplating an independent plan to acquire the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, with the chagos islands proposal excluding the United Kingdom from negotiations. U.S. officials want control of Diego Garcia, a strategic military asset in the Indian Ocean, while regular talks continue between the White House and Downing Street over the territory’s future.
Diego Garcia and the White House
The report on Sunday said the White House is considering one of several strategies aimed at preventing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer from transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. That puts Diego Garcia at the center of a negotiation that now involves the United States, Mauritius, and the United Kingdom, but not necessarily in the same room.
Diego Garcia is the main prize in the dispute because U.S. officials aim to secure control over it without involving the U.K. The Chagos Archipelago includes the island, and the White House has treated its future as a security question tied to continued access in the Indian Ocean.
Keir Starmer and Downing Street
Keir Starmer had been moving toward a transfer of sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, and that British decision was previously paused. Trump criticized the paused U.K. decision, adding pressure on Downing Street while the White House and the U.K. Foreign Office declined immediate comment on the report.
The silence from both governments leaves the present position narrower than the headlines suggest: regular talks are still going on between the White House and Downing Street, but the new idea would cut the U.K. out of the acquisition channel the White House is now weighing. For anyone watching the negotiations, the practical change is who gets a seat at the table before any sovereignty move on the Chagos Archipelago advances.
The next meaningful step is already inside the talks themselves, because the White House and Downing Street remain in regular contact over Diego Garcia while the separate U.S. plan is being considered. If that plan advances, the question becomes whether Mauritius will be asked to negotiate directly with Washington over a territory that London still seeks to manage through its own talks.
