US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday slapping sanctions on the International Criminal Court for "baseless" investigations targeting America and its close ally Israel, the White House said.
Trump's order said the court in The Hague had "abused its power" by issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held talks with the US president on Tuesday.
The order also said the tribunal had engaged in "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel," referring to ICC probes into alleged war crimes by US service members in Afghanistan and Israeli troops in Gaza.
The US president ordered asset freezes and travel bans against ICC officials, employees and their family members, along with anyone deemed to have helped the court's investigations.
The sanctions are a show of support after Netanyahu's visit to the White House, during which Trump unveiled a plan for the US to "take over" Gaza and move Palestinians to other Middle Eastern countries.
Neither the United States nor Israel are members of the court.
There was no immediate reaction from the ICC.
The ICC issued arrest warrants on November 21 for Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas' military chief Mohammed Deif -- whom Israel says is dead.
The warrants, approved after an application by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in May, are for "crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024."
During his first term, Trump imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban on the ICC's then-prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and other senior officials and staff in 2020.
Describing it as a "kangaroo court," his then-administration made the move after Gambian-born Bensouda launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes against US soldiers in Afghanistan.
While his order at the time did not name Israel, Trump administration officials said they were also angered by Bensouda's opening of a probe into the situation in the Palestinian territories in 2019.
President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions soon after taking office in 2021.
Prosecutor Khan later effectively dropped the United States from the Afghan investigation and focused on the Taliban instead.
Biden strongly condemned the "outrageous" warrant against Netanyahu in November.
The US House passed a bill last month to sanction the ICC, but Senate Democrats blocked it last week, saying the bill could backfire on US allies and firms.
But Democrats have also expressed anger at the sanctions on Netanyahu.
US cuts task forces
The Justice Department is scaling back policing of foreign interests operating in the United States, ending criminal enforcement of a law used to snare bad actors seeking to influence politics and elections on behalf of foreign governments.
In a memo sent to staff Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed she had disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to investigating violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), requiring such agents to register with US authorities.
She said the decision had been made to "free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion."
Bondi did not elaborate, but figures on the Republican Party's conspiratorial far right have accused the government of abusing FARA to unfairly target political operatives, such as Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's 2016 campaign manager who was indicted in a probe into Russian influence in that year's US election.
Also on Wednesday, the day of her swearing-in, Bondi disbanded the Task Force KleptoCapture, an initiative started in 2022 to enforce sanctions on Russia.
Moscow was widely accused of attempting to influence the 2016 vote in favor of Trump, who went on to win.
Russia has denied involvement in the scandal, despite findings from US intelligence agencies.
As for Manafort, he was charged with a litany of offenses, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and lying in FARA documents. He was ultimately pardoned by Trump.
FARA was also used to pursue Mike Flynn, Trump's first national security advisor, who lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia, and former Democratic senator Bob Menendez, who was jailed in January for bribery and failing to register as a foreign agent for Egypt.
Bondi -- who previously registered herself under FARA for work she did with Qatar -- said she was limiting criminal enforcement of the law to "alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors."
In a flurry of edicts sent out on her first day in the job, Bondi also launched a unit focused on the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, targeted diversity programs for elimination and restarted enforcement of the federal death penalty, which had been halted under then-president Joe Biden.