The sun never sets on the British Empire, they used to say. Today, the sun is struggling to even find the British Empire through the thick, greasy smog of its own terminal decline. In a move that reeks of the desperate, performative decolonization currently trendy in the halls of Whitehall, the United Kingdom has decided to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius. It is a geopolitical lobotomy performed by civil servants who seem to believe that apologizing for the 18th century will somehow fix the fact that they can no longer afford to fix their own potholes. But of course, because this is the 21st century—a period of history that reads like a fever dream written by a failed screenwriter—the deal isn't quite as clean as a simple 'sorry.'

Enter the '99-year lease' on Diego Garcia. The UK is 'giving back' the archipelago, but they are keeping the most strategically valuable part of it for the Americans to use as a launchpad for whatever 'democratizing' drone strikes they have planned for the next century. It is the diplomatic equivalent of moving out of a house, handing over the keys, but informing the new owner that you’ll be keeping the basement to store your collection of high-yield explosives and that your loud, aggressive cousin from Washington will be staying there indefinitely. It is a masterclass in having your cake, eating it, and then accusing the cake of being an imperialist construct. This is the 'Global Britain' we were promised: a nation that retains the moral authority of a used car salesman while trying to look like a champion of human rights.

Then, like a foghorn in a bathtub, comes Donald Trump. The former and perhaps future President has weighed in with his characteristic nuance, branding the deal an 'act of GREAT STUPIDITY.' Trump’s critique is as predictable as it is loud. To a man whose entire worldview is filtered through the lens of a 1980s real estate seminar, giving anything away without a gold-plated tower in return is an unforgivable sin. He doesn't care about the Chagos people, the 'Ilois,' who were forcibly removed from their homes in the 60s and 70s to make way for the American military machine. He cares about the 'Art of the Deal.' To Trump, the UK is simply a weak landlord being bullied by a smaller tenant, and he finds the lack of dominance physically offensive. It’s a collision of two distinct types of idiocy: the UK’s pathetic attempt to look virtuous while remaining a military lapdog, and Trump’s primitive obsession with territory as a scoreboard.

Let’s look at the reality of this 'Great Stupidity.' For decades, the UK has treated the Chagos Islands as an inconvenient secret. They expelled the indigenous population with a callousness that would make a Victorian industrialist blush, all to ensure that the United States could have a 'secure' base in the Indian Ocean. Now, facing legal pressure and international embarrassment, they’ve struck a bargain that satisfies no one. The Left gets a symbolic victory that doesn't actually remove the military presence they claim to hate, and the Right gets to scream about the betrayal of British territory while ignoring that the UK has been a client state of the US for decades. It is a symphony of hypocrisy where every instrument is out of tune.

Trump’s intervention adds a layer of absurdist comedy to the tragedy. His insistence that this is 'stupidity' assumes there was a 'smart' way to handle a legacy of forced displacement and secret treaties. But in the world of modern politics, there are no smart moves, only different flavors of brand management. The UK is rebranding as 'the nice guy who used to be a bully,' while Trump is doubling down on 'the guy who will take your lunch money and tell you it’s for your own good.' Neither side has a plan for the actual human beings caught in the middle. The Chagossians remain pawns, moved around a board by players who couldn't find the islands on a map without a GPS and a team of interns.

The absurdity of a 99-year lease in an era of rapid climate change and shifting global alliances is the final punchline. By the time this lease is up, the islands might be underwater, or the US might be a collection of warring city-states, yet the British government is patting itself on the back for its 'long-term vision.' It is the height of arrogance to pretend that these colonial remnants can be managed with the same spreadsheets used to track retail sales. We are watching the slow-motion collapse of an old order, and all we have to guide us are the frantic tweets of an orange real estate mogul and the stuttering apologies of a mid-tier European power. It is, quite frankly, exhausting. But then again, in a world where stupidity is the primary export, why should the Chagos Islands be any different? They are just another piece of rock for small men to fight over while the rest of us wait for the tide to come in.