Bronx, NY—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, today made the following statement regarding the administration’s announcement that it is sanctioning International Criminal Court (ICC) officials:

“This administration is determined to isolate the United States on the global stage, undermine our credibility, and sabotage the next administration’s ability to repair what it has broken over the last four years. This decision will do nothing to address problems at the ICC and may well end up ensnaring American citizens and undermining important efforts dealing with the Genocide in Myanmar, Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, and others.

“Global leadership requires building international support behind America’s position rather than bullying and lashing out. This President and those who carry out his misguided policies, however, have long since lost the ability to forge any sort of global consensus, except perhaps the consensus that the Trump foreign policy is dangerous and wrongheaded. Without a strategy or backing from friends and allies, the President has resorted to tactics that make him look less like the leader of the free world and more like the strongmen and autocrats he reveres. In the future, such figures will no doubt point to today’s actions in the hopes of avoiding accountability at the court.”

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