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Washington, DC – The power of the President of the United States Donald Trump has increased pressure campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC), where the US State Department vowed that “the government will take steps to stop” the court from functioning.
The State Department’s “campaign” was announced in a news release on Monday, along with a video of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
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It comes as the Trump administration has already imposed sanctions ICC officials and freedom groups which has given evidence in court, among many threats to punish any organizations that support the investigation of the US or its allies, especially Israel.
In his video speech, Rubio turned up the heat, accusing the court of “fighting our country, not with bullets or arrows, but with laws, compacts, and the power of so-called international law”.
“Today, it threatens both the political and legal spheres,” he said. “If they believe they can take away our sovereignty, we will teach them the full meaning of the American election.”
The announcement included only a few steps, but listed “things under consideration”.
He also included a request to countries that cooperate with the US military and law enforcement to “reject the ICC’s proposed powers to prosecute American officials and soldiers”.
It also listed “increased monitoring of countries that refuse to reject the false authority of the ICC while relying on US support”, as well as “increased sanctions” and restrictions on the movement of ICC staff and affiliated organizations.
The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the document that established the court in 2002, and is therefore not under its jurisdiction.
However, US citizens can be investigated and prosecuted as part of a series of atrocities committed in member states, ICC officials have confirmed.
For example, the ICC has been investigating crimes in Afghanistan, including abuses by US military and intelligence personnel, since 2020, although no US citizens have been charged.
Successive US governments have insisted that US citizens cannot be tried by the courts, with the Ministry of Justice repeating a statement by ICC President Tomoko Akane in late June.
Trump, during his first term as US President, issued the first sanctions in 2020 to ICC officials in response to the Afghanistan investigation.
The administration of US President Joe Biden later lifted the sanctions, but stopped short of criticizing the US government over the investigation.
Times are unknown
Although the Trump administration has criticized the court for years, William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University London, called the timing of the announcement “disturbing”.
He added that the ICC has not taken any action against the US or its allies since Trump took office in January 2025, although the administration could “speculate where the court might investigate”.
The administration has taken a number of actions that international law experts say could be investigated, including the US-Israeli war with Iran, its crackdown on alleged drug-trafficking in the Caribbean and the impeachment of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Schabas also explained that the broader rhetoric goes beyond what the U.S. is is to go beyond withdrawing more sanctions and mobilizing allies against the ICC.
However, he felt that the administration might see the ICC as weak because it deals with internal affairs. dirty things next to chief prosecutor Karim Khan.
“Maybe they just feel like they’re going to hit again, and that’s going to kill them,” he said.
Raed Jarrar, a representative of the Washington, DC-based human rights organization DAWN, said the recent efforts of the Trump administration “send the message that the powerful are above the law”.
“It is not the ICC that Rubio is demolishing brick by brick, but the international legal framework that emerged from the ashes of World War II,” he said in a statement.
