The State Department will impose further sanctions on the International Criminal Court for attempts to charge American service members, framing the tribunal as a threat to U.S. sovereignty.
A U.S. official and an internal memo reviewed by The Post make the coming action plain. Diplomatic posts got warnings Thursday that “further ICC action” was imminent, and the measures are expected to take effect soon.
Washington is answering what it calls an overreach by a court the United States never joined, one that has pursued Americans and close allies without their consent. The move builds on earlier Trump administration pressure and keeps the focus on sovereignty, service members, and national power.
American diplomats learned of the pending step after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Wednesday speech in Athens. At Greece’s Foreign Ministry, Rubio denounced attempts “to abolish the sovereignty of nations” and praised “the unapologetic pursuit of national power.”
The internal memo does not hide the administration’s view of the Hague-based court. It treats the ICC as a body that has pushed past its mandate and past the countries that never accepted its reach.
One passage lays out the core grievance in blunt terms:
"The ICC seeks to become the unaccountable global arbiter, positioning itself above and beyond the nation state as a supranational judicial arm of a globalist bureaucracy empowered to persecute American servicemen and officials at will without authority and as an affront to our sovereignty,"
Another line draws a hard boundary:
"It must be clear, once and for all, that the ICC can pose no threat to those who did not accept its authority,"
The memo adds that the court “has acted wildly outside of its purported mandate, unchecked by fundamental principles of international law, and apparently unconstrained by the Assembly of States Parties, as evidenced by its increasingly activist and inappropriate approach towards heads of State.” It also cites at least sixteen other investigations, arrests, detentions, or prosecutions undertaken “without consent of that person’s country of nationality.”
On the response itself, the document is direct:
"Building on the U.S. campaign to assemble a coalition of countries willing to reject the Court’s assault on State sovereignty, the United States has no choice but to impose further sanctions."
The memo does not spell out the exact form of the new penalties. Tools already in the mix include urging Rome Statute countries to withdraw, revoking visas for ICC personnel, and ratcheting up sanctions.
Parallel announcements have already put names and consequences on the table. The Washington Examiner reported that Rubio announced sanctions aimed at ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, part of a broader effort to isolate the tribunal over what the administration says undermines U.S. sovereignty.
The Washington Free Beacon detailed a separate tranche hitting four top figures: Judges Kimberly Prost and Nicolas Guillou, plus deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang. Americans and U.S. financial institutions are barred from transactions with the sanctioned individuals, and any U.S. property of theirs is blocked. Rubio called the court “a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel.”
Fox News reported the same four names and tied the penalties to President Trump’s executive order on the ICC. Rubio said the targets “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation.” He added that the court “continues to disregard national sovereignty and facilitate lawfare through efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute American and Israeli nationals.”
The case records attached to those officials matter. Prost authorized Afghanistan-related probes of U.S. military personnel. Guillou approved arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan and Niang backed actions against Israel. That is the concrete record the administration is answering with asset freezes and dealing bans.
This is not a sudden turn. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order sanctioning some ICC employees and their immediate family members after the court sought Netanyahu’s arrest. The order treated the court’s reach into a close ally’s leadership as a sovereignty fight, not a technical dispute.
Last month at the U.N. General Assembly, Trump stated the policy in plain language:
"We will never allow US service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us."
He went further, calling the body “an evil group of people” and urging member states to leave:
"I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately."
In a July Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rubio wrote that the United States was “dismantling the ICC” and would be “[u]sing all the tools at our government’s disposal.” The Athens speech and Thursday’s diplomatic warnings put that pledge into motion again.
The ICC was established in 2002 under the Rome Statute. Some 125 countries signed on, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and most of Europe. The United States did not accept its authority. That fact sits at the center of every recent U.S. step.
Yet the court has still moved against U.S. personnel and Israeli leaders. The memo’s count of at least sixteen other actions “without consent of that person’s country of nationality” is the administration’s evidence that the pattern is not limited to one case or one ally. The Assembly of States Parties, the memo says, has not reined the court in.
For taxpayers and troops, the practical question is simple. Can an institution in The Hague open files on American service members who never fell under its charter? Washington’s answer, repeated from the February 2025 order through the U.N. speech and now through fresh sanctions, is no.
The form of the newest penalties remains partly undisclosed in the memo reviewed by The Post. Visa revocations, financial freezes, and pressure on Rome Statute members to walk away are all on the table. Named judges and prosecutors already face blocked property and banned U.S. dealings. The direction is consistent even when the paperwork is still catching up.
The memo frames the new sanctions as part of a wider campaign: assemble countries willing to reject the court’s claim to sit above the nation-state. That is coalition language, but the first duty named is to American servicemen and officials. Rubio’s Athens line about national power fits the same frame. So does Trump’s refusal to let U.S. personnel face what he called show trials by a tribunal with no jurisdiction.
Critics of the sanctions call them an attack on judicial independence. The administration’s reply is the record itself, probes of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, warrants aimed at Israel’s elected leaders, and a string of cases opened without the home country’s consent. Soft language about international order does not erase those files.
Lawful nations already have courts, chains of command, and political accountability. A body that treats those systems as optional is not a neutral referee. It is a rival claim on power. The State Department’s further sanctions, and the named penalties already announced, treat that claim as a problem to be contained, not a process to be managed.
American troops answer to the Constitution and the chain of command, not to an unaccountable court in The Hague that the United States never joined.
