President Trump on Thursday will sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, which he accuses of overstepping its authority by targeting the U.S. and Israel, the White House said.
The order will impose financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials and their family members who have assisted in the investigations of U.S. citizens or its allies, a fact sheet distributed by the White House said.
It also makes clear that the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, and therefore the U.S. does not accept its jurisdiction over American citizens and personnel.
“In the view of the United States, the Rome Statute grants the ICC and its chief prosecutor broad, unaccountable powers that pose a significant threat to the United States sovereignty and our constitutional protections,” the fact sheet said. “The ICC was designed to be a court of last resort. Both the United States and Israel maintain robust judiciary systems.”
The ICC sparked a massive backlash in Washington in November by issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and several Hamas leaders at the same time.
White House officials said the arrest warrants created a “shameful moral equivalency.”
At the time, the court said it believed Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant used starvation as a weapon of war by restricting humanitarian aid in Gaza. The ICC also accused them of intentionally targeting civilians during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, a claim that Israeli officials said was both false and antisemitic.
Mr. Trump will sign the order two days after he met with Mr. Netanyahu, which included an Oval Office chat and joint press conference. On Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu was on Capitol Hill meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican.
James Zogby, founder of the Arab-American Institute, blasted the Trump administration for planning to sanction the ICC.
“This shameful decision to punish the court is a rejection of accountability for criminal behavior & puts the U.S. squarely on the side of Israeli war criminals,” he wrote on X, while noting that the measure appears to have bipartisan support.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, he argued that the ICC has “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority” in the United States. In 2020, he authorized an asset freeze and banned family members of ICC officials from entering the U.S. after the court opened an investigation into alleged U.S. actions in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, the House passed a bill to sanction the ICC, but it was blocked by Senate Democrats.
Since the creation of the ICC in 2002, neither the U.S. nor Israel have been members.
The ICC is based in The Hague, Netherlands. It does not have police to enforce its arrest warrants. Instead, the Rome Statute requires signatories to carry out the warrants themselves, no matter the title of those accused. Most governments have abided by the ICC’s rulings, but also maintain the international legal principle that heads of state have legal immunity from other courts.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.