WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration wants the International Criminal Court to amend its founding document to ensure it does not investigate the Republican president and his top officials, a Trump administration official said, threatening new US sanctions on the court if it did not.
If the court does not act on this US demand and two others — dropping investigations of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war and formally ending an earlier probe of US troops over their actions in Afghanistan — Washington may penalise more ICC officials and could sanction the court itself, the official said.
Sanctioning the court would significantly escalate the US campaign against the ICC, which has long been criticized by US officials including both Republicans and Democrats, who say the court infringes on US sovereignty.
The Trump administration official said Washington has communicated its demands to ICC members, some of whom are US allies, and has also made them known to the court. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 2002 as a court of last resort, with the power to prosecute heads of state.
The demand and the threat to resume the US sanctions campaign towards the court have not been previously reported.
ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defence chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
In March 2020, prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included possible crimes by US troops. Since 2021, the court has deprioritised looking into the role of the US but it has not formally ended its probe.
Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2025
