In a dramatic escalation of tensions between Washington and the world’s top war crimes tribunal, the Trump administration is demanding that the International Criminal Court (ICC) amend its founding document to guarantee immunity from prosecution for President Donald Trump and his top officials. According to multiple reports, including Reuters, the White House has warned that failure to comply with these demands could result in sweeping sanctions against the court itself, a move that would severely hamper its ability to function.
The ICC, headquartered in The Hague and supported by 125 member states, was established in 2002 by the Rome Statute as a court of last resort to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. The United States, notably, is not a party to the Rome Statute, and has long been wary of the court’s reach, with both Republican and Democratic administrations voicing concerns about threats to U.S. sovereignty.
Yet the latest demands from Washington go far beyond past criticisms. A Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the U.S. is insisting on three main conditions: the ICC must guarantee it will not investigate Trump or his top officials, drop investigations into Israeli leaders over the Gaza war, and formally end an earlier probe into U.S. troops’ actions in Afghanistan. If the ICC does not act, the official said, the administration is prepared to penalize additional ICC officials and even sanction the court itself—a step never before taken by the United States.
“There is growing concern … that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them,” the Trump administration official told Reuters. “That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen.”
These concerns are far from theoretical. Since September 2025, the U.S. military has conducted a campaign of deadly strikes against suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coasts of Latin America, resulting in the deaths of more than 80 people, according to Reuters. The administration has defended these actions as lawful, insisting that those killed were terrorists. However, members of Congress have announced plans to investigate whether U.S. forces unlawfully killed two survivors of a strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean—an incident that has drawn accusations of war crimes.
According to reporting by The Print, the most contentious episode occurred on September 2, 2025, when the U.S. military launched a secondary strike that killed two shipwrecked survivors clinging to a broken vessel. The administration has not provided evidence or the identities of those killed, and the killings are alleged to have violated both international law and the American war manual.
In this charged context, the Trump administration’s fears of future ICC prosecution have become acute. The ICC’s mandate allows it to prosecute individuals for crimes committed by them or those under their command on the territory of a member state—even sitting heads of state—if the home country fails to investigate or prosecute. While the ICC has deprioritized its probe into U.S. actions in Afghanistan since 2021, it has not formally ended the investigation. The court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri for alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict.
To pressure the ICC, the U.S. earlier in 2025 imposed sanctions on nine ICC officials, including judges and prosecutors, but has stopped short of sanctioning the court as an entity. Sanctioning the entire court would be a significant escalation, potentially disrupting its day-to-day operations, from paying staff to maintaining access to bank accounts and office software. Sanctioned officials face travel bans, frozen bank accounts, and even the threat of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine if they continue their work, as noted by Daily Kos.
The Trump administration’s demand for immunity, however, faces daunting obstacles. Amending the Rome Statute to provide blanket immunity for specific individuals would require approval by two-thirds of the ratifying countries—at least 80 of the 125 member states. As The Print points out, fundamental changes to the court’s jurisdiction could require an even larger majority. The ICC’s public affairs unit, responding to Reuters, emphasized that “amendments to the Rome Statute are within the prerogative of States Parties,” but did not address whether the United States had specifically sought immunity for Trump.
Observers across the political spectrum have criticized the U.S. push as both impractical and antithetical to the ICC’s founding principles. Granting such immunity would, in the words of The Print, “kill the purpose of the ICC.” The court was designed precisely to hold powerful individuals accountable when their own nations fail to do so. As Daily Kos notes, “the ICC only has authority to act if a state will not. In other words, the ICC couldn’t do a thing to Trump if the United States were investigating or prosecuting him, but we know that’s never going to happen.”
The Trump administration’s approach mirrors tactics used by other world leaders facing international scrutiny. After the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, the Kremlin responded with its own warrants for ICC staff. Trump’s belief that he can dictate terms to the ICC, according to Daily Kos, stems from his experience with the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently granted him a new form of immunity from prosecution at home.
The ICC’s two deputy prosecutors told Reuters they had not received any requests to investigate U.S. actions regarding Venezuela, despite speculation that the White House’s demands might be linked to concerns over military operations there. When asked if the administration’s push for immunity was connected to fears of prosecution for strikes in Venezuela, the Trump official declined to elaborate.
Any move to enshrine immunity for Trump and his officials would require not only a supermajority of ICC member states but also approval from the court’s governing body, the Assembly of States Parties. Such a move would be unprecedented and, as critics argue, would fundamentally undermine the court’s legitimacy and effectiveness.
With Washington’s demands now out in the open, the ICC and its member states face a stark choice: uphold the court’s founding mission to prosecute the world’s most serious crimes, or bow to U.S. pressure and risk rendering the institution toothless. As the international community weighs its response, the future of global accountability hangs in the balance.
For now, the Trump administration’s gambit has laid bare the deep tensions between national sovereignty and international justice—tensions that may only intensify as the world watches what comes next.
