Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan and Senior Trial Lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal on Tuesday — designating both under Executive Order 14203 for directly engaging in the ICC’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials from governments that never consented to the court’s jurisdiction.
The State Department posted the BBC’s own summary of what’s happening, apparently content to let the foreign press frame it: this is the Trump administration dismantling the International Criminal Court, quote, “brick by brick.”
That’s exactly right. And the bricks are coming down in the right order. Rubio’s statement was direct: “The ICC is a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate. We will not tolerate its assault on state sovereignty.”
The sanctions are serious in practical terms. Any assets Akane or Seye hold in the United States — bank accounts, investments, real estate, payments — are frozen. American citizens, companies, and financial institutions are broadly barred from doing business with them. For officials who routinely travel to the United States for diplomatic and legal purposes, that’s not a symbolic gesture. It’s a real constraint on their ability to function.
The broader campaign context matters. This is the third major escalation against the ICC in the past month. Rubio previously addressed 65 foreign delegations warning them to defund and withdraw from the court. The administration is simultaneously running a diplomatic effort to peel away ICC member states — and is claiming success, with several countries now reportedly reconsidering their participation.
The constitutional argument Rubio keeps making is the right one. Americans fought a revolution specifically to be free from prosecution by foreign tribunals for “pretended offenses.” The Founders encoded that principle into the founding documents. The ICC — a court whose chief prosecutor is under sexual misconduct investigation, whose jurisdiction covers neither the United States nor Israel, and whose warrants carry zero legal weight in American courts — is attempting to resurrect exactly the arrangement the Declaration of Independence explicitly rejected.
Mamdani’s New York City was “actively exploring” whether the NYPD could serve an ICC warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu before the State Department intervened. The DSA platform calls for the United States to join the ICC. Abdul El-Sayed wants America to submit to international law as superseding U.S. law. These are not fringe positions — they are the stated goals of the party’s activist base.
Rubio’s response to all of it: sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and a promise of more to come.
“The ICC’s ability to target American nationals and those of other non-States Parties must end. The Trump Administration stands ready to take additional measures, if necessary, to systematically dismantle the ICC until it is incapable of threatening American sovereignty.” Brick by brick. They mean it.
