The United Kingdom has formally paused its controversial plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, a decision triggered by fierce public pushback from U.S. President Donald Trump, a British government spokesperson confirmed Saturday. The archipelago is home to the strategically critical Diego Garcia joint U.S.-UK military base, a key defense outpost for both nations that has played a role in Western military operations in the Middle East and Indian Ocean region.
Downing Street has long maintained that any finalized agreement to hand over the Indian Ocean territory would only move forward with explicit backing from Washington. “Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is and will continue to be our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal,” the spokesperson said in an official statement, adding that British officials will continue diplomatic engagement with both the U.S. and Mauritius moving forward.
The draft legislation needed to formalize the 2024 Chagos Agreement, originally reached between London and Port Louis in May of that year, was already facing an imminent deadline: the UK Parliament is set to dissolve in the coming weeks for a general election, and the bill will not have enough time to pass through all required parliamentary stages. Government sources told the BBC that the plan is not being completely scrapped entirely, but no new legislation is expected to be introduced after the election, effectively putting the deal on ice indefinitely.
Under the original terms of the 2024 agreement, Britain would have transferred full sovereignty over the entire archipelago – located roughly 1,200 miles northeast of Mauritius – to its former colonial possession, in exchange for a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia to maintain the military base, with an option to extend the lease for a further term. Unconfirmed reports put the annual lease payment at £90 million ($111 million), a figure the UK government has neither confirmed nor denied. Former Prime Minister Keir Starmer had previously argued that the agreement was the only viable path forward, noting that international legal rulings had cast doubt on Britain’s longstanding claim to the territory and that a formal deal with Mauritius was the only way to guarantee the base could remain operational long-term.
President Trump’s opposition to the deal marked a sharp reversal from his initial position: he had endorsed the agreement after it was signed, before launching a scathing public attack on the plan in posts to his Truth Social platform in January. He slammed London’s proposal as “great stupidity” and “an act of total weakness” that would be noticed by major geopolitical rivals China and Russia. In the same post, Trump went so far as to argue that the episode justified his longstanding call for the U.S. to take control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark. The Diego Garcia base has long held major strategic importance for the U.S. and UK; most recently, the British government confirmed the base was used to launch what it described as “defensive operations” in its conflict against Iran.