Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred all US transactions with the International Criminal Court Friday and vowed to end the body if it keeps threatening American troops and leaders.
In a Washington announcement, Rubio declared the United States is cutting off every financial dealing with the ICC and expects allied nations to help rein in what he called a rogue court. The move escalates a sustained campaign to protect American service members, Border Patrol agents, and elected officials from foreign prosecution threats the United States never authorized.
Rubio made clear the United States never joined the court created by the 2002 Rome Statute and rejects any claim of jurisdiction over its citizens. He posted a video statement on X laying out the stakes for sovereignty and national security.
Rubio stated the long-standing bipartisan position against ICC power over Americans.
"For decades now, both Republicans and Democrats have rejected the idea that the International Criminal Court has any power to prosecute American citizens, to prosecute military servicemembers, or political leaders because America never joined the court,"
He added a blunt bottom line.
"We don’t need that court. And we don’t want it,"
The secretary framed the latest pressure as a direct response to globalist efforts to expand the court’s reach at America’s expense. He warned that experts an ocean away want prosecutions of troops defending the country, Border Patrol agents securing the border, and leaders charged with national security.
"They want more power, and they want it at the expense of our sovereignty as a nation. And President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Rubio said. His message left no room for ambiguity about jurisdiction.
"the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC. Both parties agree on this, but only President Trump has the resolve to take the action needed to end this threat once and for all."
The ultimatum to the court and to partners was equally direct. Either the ICC ends its threats, or the United States ends the ICC. Allies who belong to the court yet rely on American service members for defense must rein it in. If they refuse, Washington will keep dismantling the institution piece by piece until Americans face no further threat.
That stance fits a broader pattern of Rubio using the State Department to confront threats to American interests, whether designating far-left groups or pressing foreign capitals for accountability.
Rubio has treated political violence and institutional overreach as matters demanding clear action rather than endless process.
The Friday step builds on earlier measures. President Trump first sanctioned then-ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in February 2025 after Khan threatened to jail Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Sanctions that the Biden administration had reversed were reimposed beginning in June 2025 on more than half a dozen ICC officials.
In 2020, under then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the United States had already sanctioned two prosecutors tied to an ICC inquiry into American troops in Afghanistan. The pattern is consistent: when the court targets personnel from nations that never consented to its authority, Washington answers with concrete economic pressure.
A Fox News report detailed related sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye for abuses of power, freezing their US assets as part of the same effort against investigations of US and Israeli officials. Rubio described those targets as people who directly engaged in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials from governments that never consented to ICC jurisdiction. He called the whole-of-government campaign to dismantle the sovereignty threat sweeping.
Rubio had previewed the harder line days earlier. On Wednesday in Athens he called on Western nations to join the United States in the unapologetic pursuit of national power over global bureaucratic bodies. The Friday transaction ban puts that language into policy.
The secretary’s focus remains on the two jobs he holds now, not future speculation, even as he travels and confronts foreign challenges.
During recent travel he has kept the emphasis on current duties rather than political side shows.
ICC deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told Reuters the US sanctions must be condemned. She claimed they are intended to undermine the rule of law internationally and the work of an independent judicial institution. Khan insisted the court’s work will continue across all its situations, investigations, and prosecutions.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the move unfortunate and short-sighted. She posted that instead of lowering prices for Americans, the Trump administration is further isolating the United States and making it harder to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice for victims in places like Ukraine and Darfur.
"Instead of lowering prices for Americans, the Trump Administration is further isolating the U.S. and making it harder to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice for victims in places like Ukraine and Darfur,"
Shaheen’s critique treats the ICC as an indispensable venue. Rubio’s position treats it as an unaccountable body that never received American consent and now seeks power over American personnel. The United States refused to sign the Rome Statute for precisely this reason: no foreign court gets to put US troops or officials in the dock without the nation’s agreement.
Earlier Friday, ex-ICC judge Navanethem Pillay received the Nobel Peace Prize for ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted. The timing underscored the gap between the court’s self-image and the sovereignty concerns driving American policy.
Past December a Trump administration official had already flagged concerns that the ICC might eventually pursue prosecutions of the 47th president, cabinet members, or other US officials after January 2029. The new transaction ban closes economic channels before those threats can mature.
Rubio’s record shows a willingness to step back from personal political ambitions when the institutional fight requires focus.
He has already set aside 2028 talk to concentrate on the State Department portfolio.
The core facts remain straightforward. America never joined the ICC. Both parties have long rejected its claimed power over US citizens. Only the current administration has moved from statements to a full economic cutoff and an explicit dismantling campaign.
Rubio’s video and statement leave allies no comfortable middle ground. Nations that sit inside the ICC while depending on American forces for their own defense are now expected to restrain the court’s reach. Continued threats against Border Patrol agents, service members, or elected leaders will meet continued pressure.
The transaction ban is the latest concrete step after the February 2025 action against Karim Khan, the June 2025 reimposition of sanctions on multiple officials, and the earlier Pompeo-era measures tied to Afghanistan. Each episode followed the same sequence: the court asserted authority it was never granted, and the United States answered by limiting the court’s access to the American financial system.
Diplomatic pressure elsewhere has followed a similar insistence on answers and accountability rather than process for its own sake.
Rubio has pressed foreign governments when official accounts fail to match the facts on the ground.
Legal challenges to other State Department policies have not slowed the broader effort to keep American decision-making inside American institutions.
Even when a federal judge blocked one enforcement approach, the underlying priority of protecting national authority remained intact.
The ICC’s defenders cast the sanctions as an attack on international justice. Rubio casts them as the necessary defense of a sovereign republic that never handed its citizens over to an unaccountable foreign tribunal. The transaction ban and the dismantling vow put that defense into immediate practice.
American troops, border agents, and elected leaders answer to the Constitution and the voters who live under it, not to a court the United States never joined and will not permit to claim power it was never given.
