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The Trump administration is launching an effort to dismantle what it calls the threat to US sovereignty by the International Criminal Court, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Monday.
President Donald Trump and others in Washington, such as former president George W Bush, have long said the ICC should not have the authority to investigate and prosecute Americans, particularly members of the military. Reuters found the Trump administration backed sanctions against ICC officials in part to head off any future attempts to hold the Republican president or his officials accountable for US military action overseas.
In a video message posted on Monday, Rubio said the ICC was initially intended to prosecute only the gravest offences, but had turned out to be “something far more radical and extreme”, adding that the Trump administration would not allow the court to threaten US personnel.
A state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters earlier that a wide range of options is under consideration to target the ICC, including travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organisations, and diplomatic pressure on other nations to withdraw from the ICC.
“No diplomatic option will be off-limits in the campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to Americans,” the state department said in a statement.
ICC spokesperson Oriane Maillet said the court would not comment on the matter at this stage.
The ICC was established in 2002 by the international community to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. It asserts jurisdiction only if a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself. The US has never been a member of the court. However, the ICC statute also gives the court the power to prosecute atrocity crimes committed on the territory of member states by nationals of non-member states.
We will watch with interest which nations join ranks with us against this threat to Americans who are willing to risk their lives to protect others
— State Department official
Trump’s opposition towards the court goes back to his first term. It manifested again with a plan to penalise ICC officials, an idea developed in November 2024 when Trump was re-elected and the ICC issued an arrest warrant for his ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Last month, three ICC judges sued Trump and his administration over sanctions imposed on them last year, arguing the measures were unlawful.
Diplomatic campaign
Rubio, in an opinion article for the Wall Street Journal on Monday, cited calls from activists and others for the court to prosecute US personnel, including over the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants or US strikes on boats that officials say are carrying narcotics.
“As we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets and missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law,” he said in his video message, asserting that Border Patrol agents, Marines and prosecutors working on terrorism cases could face prosecution by the court.
The court has taken no steps to investigate US personnel in recent years.
In March 2020, ICC prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included looking into possible crimes by US troops, but since 2021, it has deprioritised the role of the US and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and Taliban forces.
The state department official said Rubio and other top US officials are pressuring other countries as part of a campaign “to diplomatically isolate the ICC and ensure it cannot target Americans”.
The official said nations that partner with US law enforcement, host a US military presence, or benefit from the broader US security umbrella “are being called upon to reject the ICC’s purported authority to prosecute American officials and servicemen”.
Nations that refuse to reject the ICC while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny, the official said.
“We will watch with interest which nations join ranks with us against this threat to Americans who are willing to risk their lives to protect others,” the official said.
Reuters
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