Trump tells world to quit 'rogue' ICC, threatens to decimate Iran
US President Donald Trump addresses the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, US, September 22, 2026.
What you need to know:
- Trump's call lands with particular weight in Nairobi, where former president Uhuru Kenyatta and his successor William Ruto were both indicted by the court in 2012 over the 2007-08 post-election violence.
New York, UNGA
US President Donald Trump used his address to the 81st UN General Assembly on Tuesday to declare war on the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging its member states to walk out of what he called a "rogue institution," before turning his fire on Iran with a threat to "annihilate" the country.
In his 25-minute speech, Trump opened his assault on the ICC by rejecting any authority it claims over Washington.
"The United States is equally opposed to the out-of-control institution known as the International Criminal Court," he said, before drawing a hard line around American personnel.
"We will never allow US service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us here."
President Trump told the 125 ICC member states sitting in the chamber to walk away from the court entirely.
"I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately," he said.
Hits home in Kenya
US President Donald Trump addresses the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, US, September 22, 2026.
Trump's call lands with particular weight in Nairobi, where former President Uhuru Kenyatta and his successor William Ruto were both indicted by the court in 2012 over the 2007-08 post-election violence, charges that collapsed in 2014 and 2015 amid claims of witness interference and evidence tampering.
This left Kenya's political class deeply uncertain about the court. Trump's call to abandon the ICC altogether puts that uncertainty back on the table, at a moment when President Ruto has been building his UNGA 81 pitch around the opposite instinct: strengthening multilateral institutions, not gutting them.
President Ruto used his own address at UNGA 81 to argue that Africa's core problem is not a shortage of money but a global financial architecture built on rules that disadvantage the continent by design, and he renewed Africa's long-standing demand for permanent representation on the Security Council.
Where Trump's speech treats international institutions as threats to sovereignty to be resisted or quit, Ruto's speech has pushed the opposite case: that Africa's leverage depends on reforming those institutions rather than abandoning them.
Kenya has its own unresolved grievances with the ICC. But quitting the court on Trump's terms would mean walking away from the very multilateral order Ruto has staked his UNGA 81 platform on rebuilding.
During his speech, President Trump asked the delegates: "Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?"
He said he could drive Iran into "hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations."
Iranian delegation walks out
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (centre) speaks before departing for New York, at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, Iran, September 22, 2026.
While delivering his speech, members of the Iranian delegation walked out as President Trump began describing the past six months of intermittent military strikes against Iran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are in New York for the annual UN meeting but were not in the General Assembly Hall for Trump's speech.
President Trump called for Iran's total economic isolation.
"I called on all nations to join us in enforcing the complete economic isolation of Iran until they stop their attacks on commercial shipping, relinquish their nuclear ambitions, and cease their support of terror."
He added: "The terrorist regime is behaving badly, not because they are strong and confident, but because they are weak and desperate... They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more."
He accused Tehran of extraordinary domestic brutality, claiming the government has killed more than 72,000 of its own citizens this year, and warned of the stakes if such a regime ever acquired a nuclear weapon.
"Just imagine such a vile regime empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield," he said.
"This was the reality we had to confront, a reality that far too many preferred to ignore. They all ignored it," he said.
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