Blinken Open to Restoring Trump Sanctions on ICC That Biden Revoked

Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified Tuesday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration would be open to returning to President Donald Trump’s sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As Breitbart News noted Monday, Biden revoked Trump’s sanctions on the ICC, which Trump had put into place to deter the ICC from pursuing meritless war crimes investigations against the U.S. and allied nations.

On Monday, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced that he would seek warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, over the ongoing war in Gaza.

The president denounced the ICC, but did not announce any steps that he would take to punish or deter the warrants.

Sen. James Risch (R-ID), the ranking member of the committee, noted that Biden had reversed Trump’s sanctions, and asked Blinken if the administration would consider signing legislation aimed at restoring those sanctions.

Blinken replied:

Let’s look at it … I think from our perspective, going back, in lifting sanctions that were previously implemented, the intent, the purpose was to find the best way to protect our service members who served in Afghanistan. And we believe that we did that. But given the events of yesterday, I think we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrongheaded decision.

The forthcoming Senate legislation would oppose the ICC acting against countries with an “independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system” that could handle any potential misconduct by members of their armed forces.

Blinken was interrupted several times by anti-Israel and anti-war protesters who called him a “war criminal.”

C-SPAN

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.