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Trump at the UN: ICC members should resign from this rogue institution immediately.

Photo: Daniel Torok / Public domain (source)

Trump Tells Every ICC Member Nation at the UN: ‘Resign From This Rogue Institution Immediately’

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 22, 2026 · 4 min read
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President Trump stood at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2026, and did something remarkable even by his standards: he told every member nation of the International Criminal Court to quit. “I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately,” he said in his address to the 81st session.

It was not an aside. Trump framed the court as part of a broader indictment of international bodies that have drifted far from their purpose, and then he pivoted straight to the UN’s own human rights apparatus and its silence on the persecution of Christians.

What he said

According to the transcript published by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, Trump moved to the court directly after declaring there will be no global taxes while he is president:

“The United States is equally opposed to the out of control institution known as the International Criminal Court. We will never allow U.S. service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us, an evil group of people. I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately.”

The United States has never ratified the Rome Statute that created the court, and it does not recognize the court’s authority over Americans. Israel is not a member either. That has not stopped the court from reaching for both.

Why the court is in Washington’s sights

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside one for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who has since been killed. Putting the elected leaders of a democracy defending itself after the October 7 massacre in the same docket as the terrorist who planned it was, for many Americans, the moment the court’s credibility collapsed. Israel denies the charges.

The administration has answered with sanctions. A February 2025 executive order authorized travel and economic penalties on people who assist ICC investigations. According to The Algemeiner, 11 court officials have been sanctioned since then, including eight judges, two deputy prosecutors and the chief prosecutor, with measures ranging from U.S. travel bans to frozen assets.

In July 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further, announcing in a video address and a Wall Street Journal op-ed what he called, according to The Federalist, a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.” “We will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary,” he wrote.

The next step may be bigger still. The Federalist, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported that the administration is preparing a more extensive sanctions package that could block the court from conducting U.S. dollar transactions, which would cut it off from much of the global financial system.

The UN’s selective outrage

Trump then turned the same argument on the UN’s own human rights officials. “It is equally unacceptable that with all the genuine atrocities in the world, the U.N.’s top human rights officials spend their time criticizing the United States for protecting our children from transgender mutilation and transgender insanity and enforcing our immigration laws,” he said.

And then the line that will resonate far beyond the hall: “The craven hypocrites of Human Rights Council have little to say about the persecution of Christians. Christians? I mean, Christians are being persecuted all over the world. It’s not even believable.”

He tied it to immigration, saying these same bodies “want America to open up our borders to gangs and criminals from world’s most dangerous places.”

The charge of selective outrage is hard to wave away. When the institutions charged with defending human rights find time to lecture America about its border and its children but little time for Christians being driven from their homes, they invite exactly the contempt Trump delivered.

The reaction

The call drew immediate pushback from critics of the administration. In the Philippines, Rep. Antonio Tinio of the ACT Teachers Partylist compared it to former President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2018 withdrawal from the court, saying Trump is “leading the attack on the ICC to avoid accountability.” But the question Trump posed was not whether the court ever prosecutes anyone. It was whether a tribunal with no jurisdiction over the United States, which has chosen to target the leaders of a democratic ally fighting a terrorist army, deserves the continued support of the world’s democracies.

For the court’s member states, the answer will not come quickly. But the message from Washington is no longer subtle: the United States intends to make membership costly, and the president has now asked the world, in person, to walk away.

A court that puts Israel’s prime minister in the same dock as Hamas, and a UN that cannot find its voice for persecuted Christians, do not get to lecture America.

Sources

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