‘By issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials and Hamas officials at the same time, the ICC created a shameful moral equivalency,’ WH fact sheet says
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its efforts to prosecute America and its allies, primarily Israel. The order “places financial and visa sanctions” on all ICC personnel, as well as their families, according to information provided by the White House.
Trump’s order closely mirrors congressional legislation that overwhelmingly passed the GOP-controlled House in January. The bill stalled in the Senate, however, when all but one Democratic member, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, voted against it.
Like Congress’s bill, Trump’s order authorizes far-reaching sanctions on the ICC and those who assist it in investigating U.S. citizens and allies, according to a White House fact sheet reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The court has faced widespread GOP criticism for issuing an arrest warrant on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington, D.C., through Sunday for meetings with the White House and Congress.
“By issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials and Hamas officials at the same time, the ICC created a shameful moral equivalency,” the White House wrote in its fact sheet on the executive order. “The ICC consistently constrains liberal, democratic nations like Israel in exercising their rights to self-defense.” Trump, the fact sheet adds, “will not support an organization that unfairly targets U.S. citizens and our allies.”
Neither Israel nor the United States recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. Trump nonetheless applied both financial sanctions and visa restrictions on its members, measures that will effectively bar ICC officials, as well as their family members, from entering the United States and cut off their access to some financial networks.
The sanctions, the White House said, are in direct response to the “ICC’s biased attacks on the U.S. and Israel.” Trump’s decision to sign the order while Netanyahu is in town reflects the White House’s drive to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance after four years of tension under Joe Biden.
“The ICC’s disproportionate focus on Israel, without investigating the actions of groups that openly call for Israel’s destruction, reveals a clear double standard,” the fact sheet adds. It also points out that while the ICC pursues Israel, it has done little to combat the Iranian regime’s mass human rights abuses.
The court spends more than $2 billion a year investigating countries like Israel, but has conducted “less than 10 successful prosecutions,” according to the White House.
The Rome Statute, an international treaty that established the ICC in 1998, grants the court and its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, “unaccountable powers that pose a significant threat to United States sovereignty and our constitutional protections,” the White House said in justifying the sanctions.
Thursday’s executive order continues a tough stance toward the court that started during Trump’s first term in office.
In 2020, Trump initiated an asset freeze and entry ban on ICC officials after the court began investigating alleged American war crimes in Afghanistan.
In November 2024, when the ICC first issued its arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the Israeli leader slammed the court, claiming its efforts signal a deep anti-Semitic bias.
