section_path: Criticism and opposition/United States
section_name: United States
paragraph_text: United States
  
  United States President George W. Bush signed the American Service-Members' Protection Act (informally referred to as The Hague Invasion Act) to signify the United States' opposition to any possible future jurisdiction of the court or its tribunals. The act gives the President the power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court". During the administration of Barack Obama, U.S. opposition to the ICC evolved to "positive engagement", but no effort was made to ratify the Rome Statute.
  
  The subsequent Donald Trump administration was considerably more hostile to the Court, similar to the Bush administration, threatening prosecution and financial sanctions on ICC judges and staff in U.S. courts as well as imposing visa bans in response to any investigation against American nationals in connection to alleged crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. in Afghanistan. The threat included sanctions against any of over 120 countries that have ratified the Court for cooperating in the process. In November 2017, Fatou Bensouda advised the court to consider seeking charges for human rights abuses committed during the War in Afghanistan such as alleged rapes and tortures by the U.S. Armed Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency, crime against humanity committed by the Taliban, and war crimes committed by the Afghan National Security Forces. John Bolton, National Security Advisor of the United States, stated that ICC Court had no jurisdiction over the U.S., which had not ratified the Rome Statute. In 2020, overturning the previous decision not to proceed, senior judges at the ICC authorized an investigation into the alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
  
  On 11 June 2020, the United States announced sanctions on officials and employees, as well as their families, involved in investigating alleged crimes against humanity committed by U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan. This move was widely criticized by human rights groups. The U.S. ordered sanctions against the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and the ICC's head of Jurisdiction, Complementary, and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochok, for an investigation into alleged war crimes by U.S. forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Afghanistan since 2003. Attorney General William Barr said, "The US government has reason to doubt the honesty of the ICC. The Department of Justice has received substantial credible information that raises serious concerns about a long history of financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the office of the prosecutor". The ICC responded with a statement expressing "profound regret at the announcement of further threats and coercive actions." "These attacks constitute an escalation and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Court's judicial proceedings", the statement said. "They are announced with the declared aim of influencing the actions of ICC officials in the context of the court's independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings."
  
  On 30 September 2020, prominent United States human rights lawyers announced that they would sue Trump and his Administration—including Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, and OFAC director Andrea Gacki, and the departments they head—on the grounds that Trump's Executive Order 13928 order had gagged them, violating their right to free speech and impeding their work in trying to obtain justice on behalf of victims of war crimes. One of the plaintiffs, Diane Marie Amann, stated that, as a result of sanctions against the chief prosecutor at the ICC, she herself risked having her family assets seized if she continued to work for children who are bought and sold by traffickers, killed, tortured, sexually abused and forced to become child soldiers.
  
  On 4 January 2021, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in New York City issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration from imposing criminal or civil penalties against ICC personnel and those who support the court's work, including the plaintiffs. The sanctions were subsequently lifted by the Biden administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April 2021.
  
  In 2023, the Biden administration welcomed the issuing of an ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Joe Biden said that the issuing of the warrant "makes a very strong point". In 2024, the Biden administration opposed an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the Gaza war in the Gaza Strip. Biden denounced Netanyahu's arrest warrant as "outrageous." Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration would work with the US Congress on potential sanctions against the ICC. Prior to the issuing of the ICC's arrest warrant for Netanyahu, a group of US Republican senators sent a letter to ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan that contained the warning "Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward... we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned." The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to sanction ICC officials on 4 June 2024.
  
  On 9 January 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act by 243–140 to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant issued in November 2024. On 6 February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing economic and travel sanctions on individuals involved in ICC investigations targeting U.S. citizens and allies, notably Israel. This action coincided with Netanyahu visiting Washington. The sanctions entail freezing U.S. assets of designated individuals and prohibiting their entry into the United States. This move mirrors a similar stance taken during Trump's first term, when sanctions were applied to ICC officials over investigations into alleged war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
  
  On 5 June 2025 the United States Department of State sanctioned four ICC judges— Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia —under President Trump ’s Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.” The four judges were accused of engaging in efforts "to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality"— viz, of the United States or Israel. The sanctions effectively block those individuals' property interests and all other beneficial financial transactions within the United States.