Trump Takes Petty Revenge on Real Nobel Prize Winner
Marco Rubio has been dispatched to sanction an international body after one of its figures lightly mocked the president.
Evan Vucci/REUTERS
President Donald Trump has thrown a temper tantrum after a Nobel Peace Prize recipient mocked him immediately after winning the award.
Trump, 80, has responded to the perceived snub by imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday, hours after one of its former judges won the coveted peace prize.
“President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “That is why, today, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate.”
The Trump administration has long been at odds with the court, raging that it has issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and previously probed the actions of American soldiers in Afghanistan.
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The court has 125 member states, including all NATO members except the United States and Turkey.
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“We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate against us. Because our message is clear: the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC,” Rubio said. “We don’t need that court, and we don’t want it.”
Rubio’s statement comes mere hours after the South African Judge Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She served on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber from 2003 to 2008. The prize committee said in its citation that it sought to “issue a reminder” at a time when “judges and institutions of international law are under political attack.”
“An international legal system in which war criminals are held to account and the victims of abuse see justice served is a precondition for a peaceful world,” the citation read.
Pillay, 85, immediately mocked Trump over the loss, referencing his unabashed push for Venezuela’s María Corina Machado to hand him her Nobel Peace Prize.
“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she ribbed.
Now, Rubio says U.S. sanctions will block any assets the ICC may have in U.S. jurisdictions, setting a six-month timeline for U.S. companies and individuals that have business with the court to cut ties with the international court.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that U.S. companies have six months to wind down ties to the ICC.
REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Rubio claims that sanctioning the court is something Democrats have secretly wanted, too, but only Trump was bold enough to act upon it.
Trump, 80, has not tried to hide his dissatisfaction with not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While he has not gone nuclear like he did after losing last year, he reshared a Truth Social post that made his displeasure clear.

The lengthy post that President Donald Trump reshared on his Truth Social account.
Truth Social
“Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN’s Navi Pillay,” the post shared by Trump reads. “Pillay is an unabashed hater of America and Israel. In her position, she celebrated terrorists and rewarded Hamas...”
It continues, “President Trump gave us the Abraham Accords, which the world said would be impossible, and is now expanding them! He brought home the hostages when all seemed hopeless! He is making best efforts to end the Russia/Ukraine war, to stop Iran, the number one sponsor of international terrorism, and he is trying to rebuild Gaza despite the terrorists’ best efforts to control it. The list goes on and on. These are the kinds of things the Nobel Peace Prize was intended to recognize and reward!”
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