US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday, hours after one of its former judges won the Nobel Peace Prize. This comes as the US has in recent months made no bones about pursuing what Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called a "sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court." The United States and Israel had both strongly opposed the court's arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since 2020 and the back end of Trump's first term, the US had also opposed investigations into military actions in Afghanistan that "deprioritize" alleged US wrongdoings, focusing on the Taliban, but can nevertheless include them.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "President Trump will never allow the International Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. "That is why, today, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate," he said.
The statement said that the US had "exercised discretion and deferred this designation out of respect for our relationships and in hopes that the ICC would change course or would otherwise be restrained by States Parties." Rubio said that both political parties in the US had long agreed that the ICC should not have jurisdiction over US citizens, but said "only President Trump has the resolve to take the action needed to end this threat for good." "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC. We expect our allies, many of whom are part of the ICC and that rely on American servicemembers for their defense, to rein in the court," Rubio said. "If they do not, the United States will continue its campaign to dismantle the ICC, brick by brick, until Americans are threatened no longer." The ICC said the US sanctions aimed to obstruct an "independent" international court supported by more than half of the UN's members.
"The court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes," said ICC President Tomoko Akane, who already faces US sanctions. The ICC called the Rome Statute, which underpins membership of the court, a "collective promise" that the most serious international crimes must not go unpunished. "That promise is only as strong as the resolve of those who made it," the court said.
It appealed to members to take "concrete actions" to ensure the court would still have the necessary means to continue its work. "No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice," it said. "History will judge this moment.
Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an insitution created to protect them came under attack." The State Department released the announcement a few hours after the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Navi Pillay, who was an ICC judge from 2003 to 2012. Last year Trump repeatedly complained that he should have won the accolade for promoting world peace, prompting Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to present him with her trophy as a gift. Without naming names, the Nobel Committee made clear reference to the US sanctions against the ICC when announcing Pillay as this year's laureate.
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