President Donald Trump didn’t mince words when he called the International Criminal Court an “evil group of people” and demanded every member nation resign from the tribunal immediately during his Tuesday address to the United Nations General Assembly.
The sharp rebuke comes as the administration prepares to escalate its financial war against the ICC.
“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,” Trump declared. “They’re 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 ICC drew Trump’s ire after issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Neither the United States nor Israel has ever recognized the court’s authority. In the months leading up to the UN meeting, the administration sanctioned numerous ICC staff members in response to the Israeli warrants.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in July that the U.S. would launch a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty,” vowing to do so “brick by brick” if necessary.
Trump’s criticism extended far beyond the ICC. He took aim at the UN Human Rights Council for ignoring “genuine atrocities in the world” while attacking America for protecting children from what he called “transgender mutilation and transgender insanity” and for enforcing immigration laws.
“The craven hypocrites of Human Rights Council have little to say about the persecution of Christians,” Trump said. “Yet they want America to open up our borders to gangs and criminals from world’s most dangerous places. They want the worst people to come in from the worst places on earth, and we don’t do it anymore.”
The president called out what he described as a fundamental contradiction within the UN itself. While UNESCO claims to protect cultural heritage, Trump argued, globalist policies of mass migration are “actively destroying the greatest cultures and most extraordinary heritage in all of history.”
“There is no human right to illegal immigration, but there is a right to remain a sovereign nation, and we want to remain a sovereign nation, and so should you,” he told the assembly.
Trump also highlighted American-led reforms that have cut the UN budget by 15 percent and eliminated over 4,000 bureaucrats from its staff. U.S. intervention stopped the UN’s International Maritime Organization from “secretly” creating a global carbon tax that would have increased shipping costs by 10 to 20 percent, according to the president.
“And while I’m president, there will be no global taxes,” Trump said. “The United Nations has great, great potential. I’ve said that for many years. But it must stop imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats who nobody ever elected.”
