The Trump administration on Friday imposed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which it believes operates against the US. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a video message, calling the ICC a “rogue court”.
The US has accused the ICC of becoming politicised and attempting illegally and unfairly to prosecute Israelis and Americans over war crimes.
“We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us,” Rubio said in the video posted on X.
The sanctions come hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize – an award that Trump has been seeking since he assumed office as President of the United States for the second time.
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They block any assets the ICC as an institution might have in US jurisdictions and set a six-month timeline for US companies and individuals that have business with the court to wind that business down.
“They want to prosecute border patrol agents that are protecting our nation’s borders, and they want to prosecute our elected leaders that are ensuring our national security. They want more power, and they want it at the expense of our sovereignty as a nation,” Rubio said of the global tribunal.
He said Donald Trump will “never allow” the court to prosecute Americans, asserting that “the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.”
Today, the Trump Administration is sanctioning the ICC. This action should encourage our Allies within the Court to work for solutions to end this threat to US sovereignty forever. https://t.co/D86dCqLUaZ
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) October 9, 2026
Navi Pillay, the South African jurist who served as a judge on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber from 2003-2008, had earlier warned of mounting political attacks on the court. Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The US has long been angry at the ICC over the arrest warrants it issued for several people including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and over past actions of the US in Afghanistan.
“Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC,” Rubio warned.
He said the US expects its allies, many of whom are part of the ICC, “to rein in this rogue court.”
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If they do not, the United States will continue its campaign to dismantle the ICC piece by piece until Americans are threatened no longer,” Rubio said.
ICC Issues Statement
The International Criminal Court reacted to the US sanctions shortly after they were announced, saying that they were an attack on international law.
“History will judge this moment,” it warned in a statement.
The sanctions are “an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law”, it said.
The court said such actions were aimed at intimidating ICC staff and disrupting its activities, vowing it would not be deterred.
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“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 in the statement.
The statement called on the ICC’s 125 members to side with the institution, saying: “Its fate now rests also in the hands of the states that created it.”
