The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on four members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for targeting Israelis and Americans for prosecution.
The ICC last year issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a post on X in which he explained that the ICC “continues to disregard national sovereignty and facilitate lawfare through efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute American and Israeli nationals.”
“We will continue to hold accountable those responsible for the ICC’s morally bankrupt and legally baseless actions against Americans and Israelis,” Rubio added.
The @IntlCrimCourt continues to disregard national sovereignty and facilitate lawfare through efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute American and Israeli nationals. In response, I am sanctioning four additional ICC officials. We will continue to hold accountable…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 20, 2025
The sanctions target Judges Kimberly Prost and Nicolas Guillou—who authorized probes of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, according to a press release. Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang will also face sanctions for continuing to support ICC actions against Israel.
The State Department stated that sanctions are in line with an executive order that President Donald Trump issued back in February, opening the door for sanctions on members of the court. The order “aims to impose tangible and significant consequences on those directly engaged in the ICC’s transgression against the United States and Israel.”
The announcement stated that “all property and interests in property of the sanctioned persons described above that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).”
“The United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICC’s politicization, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach,’ Rubio wrote in a press statement. “The Court is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel.”
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Trump’s executive order was retaliation for the ICC’s efforts to target Netanyahu. It states that the court “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
The ICC launched an investigation in 2020 into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan involving the US military and CIA personnel. The investigation, which is still active, centers on the treatment of detainees and CIA “black sites” in other countries.
The court has not publicly named individual Americans it is investigating. However, the investigation has raised eyebrows because they are looking into American citizens without the federal government’s consent. To ICC jurisdiction.
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