Trump Signs Executive Order to Sanction International Criminal Court

A White House official announced that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, will sign an executive order on Thursday, February 7, to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to its actions against the United States and Israel. According to him, this executive order will impose financial and visa sanctions against individuals assisting the ICC's investigations into American citizens and their families. This move by Donald Trump comes after a proposal to sanction the ICC failed to gain the Senate's approval last Tuesday. In that session, although 54 senators supported the sanctions against the ICC, the opposition of 45 other senators prevented the proposal from achieving the necessary 60 votes out of 100 members of the Senate. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, emphasized the ICC's 'anti-Israel bias' during the voting session and urged his colleagues to vote against it, claiming it targeted some American companies as well. However, Jim Risch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated before the vote that passing this proposal was in line with 'defending U.S. sovereignty, the rights of American citizens, and our ally, Israel.' He described the ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defense of Israel, as 'completely political and another example of politicization and anti-Semitism' that he claimed 'has spread in some international organizations.' This proposal, titled the 'Countering Unlawful Court Act,' would have allowed the United States to impose sanctions against any foreign entity that subjected American citizens and its allies, including Israel, to investigations, arrests, detentions, and prosecutions. The failure of the Senate to approve sanctions against the ICC comes while the House of Representatives had previously agreed to it on January 10, with 243 votes in favor, including support from 45 Democratic lawmakers against 140 votes opposing it. Reuters reported last month that the ICC had preemptively paid three months' salaries to its employees to protect itself from potential U.S. sanctions. Tomoko Akane, the president of the ICC, warned two months ago that U.S. sanctions would rapidly undermine the activities of this international body and threaten its existence. This is the second time the United States has taken retaliatory actions against the ICC. The first government under Donald Trump also imposed sanctions in 2020 against Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the ICC, and one of her senior aides due to their investigations into certain actions of American soldiers in Afghanistan. The ICC, which consists of 125 members, can prosecute individuals for charges related to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression against the territory of any of its member states. The United States, China, Russia, and Israel are not members of the ICC.