President Donald Trump will sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court on Thursday over what the White House says are unfair attacks against close ally Israel and concern within the administration that the U.S. could be its next target.
Trump intends to place financial and visa sanctions on anyone who assists the ICC in investigating U.S. citizens or America’s allies, according to a White House fact sheet. He will also impose punishing actions on those individuals’ family members.
The ICC, which is seated in The Hague in the Netherlands, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in November over alleged war crimes in Gaza. It issued a warrant for a senior leader of Hamas at the same time.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate sought to pass legislation sanctioning the ICC last month but could not overcome Democratic opposition to the bill, which passed the House with bipartisan support.
Like Israel, the U.S. is not a party to the international treaty that established the ICC. The pact provides the ICC and its chief prosecutor with powers that the U.S. says are a threat to its sovereignty.
Trump, in his first term, hit ICC officials with an asset freeze and travel restrictions over their investigation into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He argued at the time that the international court has no jurisdiction or authority over the U.S.
The arrest warrants last year for Israeli leaders were also met with fierce opposition from the U.S., with former President Joe Biden calling them “outrageous” and saying there was “no equivalence” between the nation and Hamas. The Trump administration also accused the ICC of drawing a “shameful moral equivalency” between Israel’s actions and those of Hamas.
In sanctioning the ICC on Thursday, the White House accused the court of working to prevent Israel and other nations from exercising their right to self-defense. The White House also accused the ICC of “biased attacks” and a “disproportionate focus on Israel” in its investigation of the war in Gaza.
The conflict began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and took roughly 250 hostages into Gaza. More than 46,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict, according to the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry.
Israel and Hamas have since reached a ceasefire agreement that involves the release of hostages taken by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Netanyahu is currently in the U.S. meeting with lawmakers. He held talks with Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
At his confirmation hearing in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes was a test of power the ICC could try to wield against other nonmember nations such as the United States.
“I think the United States should be very concerned, because I believe this is a test run for applying it to American service members and American leaders in the future,” Rubio said.