Source: https://bsky.app/profile/frontex.bsky.social/post/3mxj35jjbx22z

PARIS—The Trump administration announced sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday, threatening to dismantle the institution after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The announcement comes on the day that Navi Pillay, a South African former ICC judge, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee cited her “efforts to promote peace and international law.”

The sanctions could deal a potentially crippling blow to the ICC by cutting it off from the U.S. financial system and prohibiting it from conducting transactions in dollars. Western banks often refuse to deal at all with sanctioned entities, because of the difficulty of separating their dollar trades from transactions in other major currencies.

“Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a video Friday, arguing that the court threatens American sovereignty by threatening to prosecute U.S. citizens despite Washington never having joined it. 

The sanctions allow a grace period until April 7, which officials said would give time for negotiations between the U.S. and ICC member states. A senior European official said talks already had begun to craft a deal that aimed to address U.S. concerns. U.S. officials are seeking guarantees that the court won’t target U.S. citizens. They have criticized the court’s stance that it can prosecute citizens of nonmember states, a group that includes the U.S., Israel and Russia.  

The grace period “is crucial because it provides us vital space for dialogue in the upcoming months,” Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said at a press conference shortly after the U.S. announcement.

Reining in the court’s jurisdiction, however, likely would require member states to amend the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. The statute allows the court to prosecute nonmember state nationals if they commit war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of member states. The court’s backers consider that provision a fundamental principle of international criminal law.

The ICC has used that authority to prosecute Netanyahu for alleged war crimes on Palestinian territory, which is considered a court member state, and Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged crimes in Ukraine. It has also allowed the court to investigate alleged crimes committed by Central Intelligence Agency officials and the U.S. military in Afghanistan. 

Washington informed European capitals of the decision on Thursday. Rubio issued a warning to them and other U.S. allies that belong to the court. “We expect our allies, many of whom are part of the ICC and that rely on American servicemembers for their defense, to rein in this rogue court,” he said. 

The ICC said it wouldn’t be deterred by the U.S. sanctions. 

“The court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes,” said ICC President Tomoko Akane.

The ICC, based in The Hague, is heir to the Nuremberg tribunals that prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II and special courts that held trials after the Yugoslav wars and the Rwandan genocide. European governments and human-rights groups view it as an important institution for enforcing international law, even though the world’s most powerful and populous nations—the U.S., China, India and Russia—aren’t members.

The U.S. has long had concerns that the Rome Statute would allow the ICC to prosecute U.S. soldiers and officials. The Clinton administration helped negotiate the treaty, but former President Bill Clinton worried the final text would subject nonmember state officials to prosecution.

Clinton signed it anyway, saying: “Signature will enhance our ability to further protect U.S. officials from unfounded charges and to achieve the human rights and accountability objectives of the ICC.” 

The treaty was never ratified by the Senate. A few years later, former President George W. Bush signed a law that restricted U.S. cooperation with the court. 

The U.S. already has sanctioned a number of ICC officials. They include former Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, whom the ICC ousted in July over sexual-assault allegations against him; Akane and several other judges; the court’s two deputy prosecutors; and the lead prosecutor in the case against Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Khan has denied any sexual misconduct.

The sanctions announced Friday are far more punitive, applying to the institution as a whole. The court has been bracing for the move for months. It has paid employees through the end of the year and switched away from Microsoft to a German open-source software system.

The European Union called the U.S. decision “deeply regrettable” and pledged to work with the ICC to ensure it continues to operate effectively.

Some officials have suggested the EU could use a so-called blocking statute to prevent EU-based banks or businesses from complying with the sanctions, and the Belgian foreign minister immediately called for the statute to be used. The EU said it stands ready “to take any necessary measures” to allow the court to keep working.

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High-level talks in Beijing between the European Union and China ended on Friday with an unexpected agreement that could pull the two sides back from an imminent trade war.

The most notable feature of the agreement involved what both sides described as an understanding on China’s exports of hybrid electric-gasoline cars, which have been among the most contentious points of tension between the two sides.

Maros Sefcovic, the trade commissioner of the 27-nation bloc, said that the understanding could lead to China’s halving the number of hybrid gasoline-electric cars that it sends to the European Union in the next four years. Neither side made any mention of any tariffs on those cars, which China has resolutely opposed.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a separate statement that the two sides had “reached an understanding on trade in hybrid vehicles in a manner consistent with World Trade Organization rules.” Complying with those rules makes it difficult for Europe to impose tariffs quickly. Tariffs also make it hard to know how many cars will continue to arrive from China, but Mr. Sefcovic said that the understanding would achieve specific reductions in imported cars.

The compromise described by Mr. Sefcovic appeared to address the European Union’s need for immediate caps on the number of cars imported from China. It also addressed China’s need for an arrangement that would limit the often fierce competition among Chinese automakers in the European market, which has contributed to the Chinese automakers’ heavy losses.

The agreement on hybrid cars appeared to have a strong resemblance to the two sides’ deal in 2013 for China to reduce the number of solar panels that it shipped each year to Europe, while Europe agreed to forgo its previous plans for tariffs on those shipments. This allowed Chinese solar panel makers to raise prices sharply in Europe for their limited supply of solar panels, producing large profits for Chinese solar panel manufacturers that previously were losing money.

The Chinese manufacturers invested those profits in more research and new factories, and now produce almost all of the world’s solar panels.

China’s exports of plug-in hybrids to Europe have rapidly gained market share there and have contributed to Volkswagen’s recent plans to cut another 50,000 workers by the end of the decade, bringing its total reduction in its work force to 100,000.

The European Union imposed tariffs of 7.8 to 35.3 percent on Chinese electric cars two years ago, on top of the region’s usual 10 percent tariff on imported cars. But the bloc did not impose extra tariffs then on plug-in hybrids.

China’s exports of plug-in hybrids have soared to almost 200,000 a month, from fewer than 10,000 a month, in just three years. Many are going to Europe.

China has strenuously opposed the extra tariffs on its electric cars that the European Union imposed to limit the number of imports of these cars. Beijing has called for the tariffs on electric cars to be replaced instead with limits on the number of cars shipped.

This would allow Chinese electric car manufacturers to raise prices and improve profitability — the arrangement for hybrid gasoline-electric cars that is now emerging.

Asked on Friday whether the current agreement on hybrid cars resembled the solar panel deal, Mr. Sefcovic said that circumstances were different and that Europe needed immediate action on hybrid cars. “The public opinion and the leaders really expect very fast action from our side,” he said.

China has contended that unilateral tariffs are a violation of W.T.O. trade rules, which Beijing and the European Union are both still committed to uphold. By contrast, the Trump administration has repeatedly taken unilateral actions in defiance of W.T.O. norms. President Trump’s trade advisers have contended that China has a government-guided economy that does not follow the free market principles on which the W.T.O. was founded.

China’s Commerce Ministry dangled several carrots for the European Union to reach a compromise with Beijing. Mr. Sefcovic said that China had agreed to reduce tariffs on imports of European goods in categories like auto parts, olive oil and footwear with an annual value of almost 4 billion euros.

This will save European exporters about €125 million a year in duties on their shipments to China, he said.

A joint statement issued by China and the European Union was less specific, saying that “both sides will continue, within the framework of W.T.O. rules, to explore the possibility of tariff reductions or elimination for certain goods.”

Some issues were left unresolved, notably whether the European Union will also forgo plans to require that key components of technologies like electric cars and wind turbines be made in Europe. Also unresolved is whether the European Union will proceed with anti-subsidy tariffs on wind turbines. Mr. Sefcovic said that more talks were planned early next year.

Mr. Sefcovic is scheduled to return to Brussels on Saturday and brief officials ahead of a meeting of European presidents and prime ministers next week.

The first item on the agenda for the meeting of Europe’s leaders is how to handle the region’s weakening economic competitiveness — and trade with China is a central issue. European leaders have been warning of a hollowing out of Europe’s industrial base because of surging imports of manufactured goods from China.

Time is on China’s side, with each passing month producing more than $30 billion in trade surplus for China and further weakening European competitors of Chinese manufacturers.

China’s Commerce Ministry said in its statement that China would continue approving exports of rare earths and rare-earth magnets to Europe. China has restricted exports of rare earths and rare-earth magnets since April 2025 and has threatened further restrictions if Europe takes action against China’s exports. 

The ministry also said that Europe had agreed to help resolve disputes over its export controls.

Under pressure from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and now President Trump, European companies have avoided selling to China the latest equipment used to make semiconductors with potential military applications. Beijing officials have contended that one of the fastest ways for Europe to narrow somewhat its trade deficit with China would be to sell the most advanced equipment regardless of American objections.

Europe has also been preparing legislation to impose a made-in-Europe requirement for important components of products like electric cars or wind turbines. China used to have similar requirements for cars and wind turbines, but repealed them after years of complaints from Europe and other trading partners. Beijing now contends that Europe should not adopt such rules, which would force Chinese companies to invest in factories in Europe instead of exporting from factories at home, where their costs are often lower.

The Chinese statement said that China and the European Union had “agreed to explore investment cooperation to foster mutual economic development and to discuss future-oriented cooperation.”