The International Criminal Court is bracing for tough economic sanctions imposed on it by Donald Trump this week amid fears the move could paralyze its work and pose an existential threat.

ICC officials are preparing for swift action under the new Trump administration, imposing tough financial and travel restrictions on the court and senior staff, including the chief prosecutor and judges.

U.S. sanctions have been imposed since the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Galant in November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The threat looms over the International Criminal Court.

In response to the arrest warrant, the U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this month to impose sanctions on the ICC, advancing legislation that Republican leaders said would soon come to a vote in the Senate.

However, multiple ICC sources said the court's leadership is concerned that Trump will not wait for legislation and instead launch a swift attack by issuing executive orders to lay the legal basis for multiple rounds of sanctions.

According to interviews with officials and diplomats familiar with the ICC's preparations, the court is planning for a "worst-case scenario" in which the United States imposes sanctions on the institution in addition to measures targeting individuals.

ICC sources said sanctions against senior court officials would be difficult but manageable, while agency-wide sanctions would pose an existential threat to the court as they would prevent it from accessing services on which its operations depend.

"The concern is that sanctions will be used to shut down the court and destroy it, rather than just tying its hands," an ICC official said.

Core services affected by institutional sanctions include international chambers of commerce's access to banking and payment systems, IT infrastructure and insurance providers. Such measures would prevent U.S. companies from doing business or transacting with the court.

A major concern that has emerged in recent months is the ICC's reliance on Microsoft, which has grown in recent years after chief prosecutor Karim Khan formed a partnership with the company to overhaul the court system. Dependence deepens.

Multiple sources at the prosecutor's office said Microsoft's Azure cloud platform is critical to its operations and that suspending access would paralyze its investigation. “We basically store all the evidence in the cloud,” one person said.

It is understood that court authorities are rapidly reviewing ICC's suppliers and terminating some business relationships to reduce their risks. Some employees are being advised to consider closing any U.S. bank accounts they hold.

It is understood that the court is also working with some member states to explore the use of EU and UK legal mechanisms to prevent residents and companies from complying with certain foreign sanctions regimes.

One European diplomat said "it's not a panacea," but ICC officials hope the so-called blocking regulations will protect companies that want to continue dealing with the courts despite sanctions.

The ICC has previously dealt with U.S. sanctions in 2020, when Trump's first administration imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of his top officials .

While the measures were intrusive and highly unusual, they were relatively narrow in scope, although they were taken in response to Bensouda's decision in the war crimes investigation in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The latest round of U.S. sanctions are expected to affect a wider range of ICC officials and will be imposed as the new Trump administration takes office, leaving court staff concerned that sanctions will evolve and escalate over time.

Päivi Kaukoranta, president of the ICC's governing body, said sanctions could seriously impede the court's investigations and could "affect the safety of victims, witnesses and sanctioned individuals." She said the court's work must be allowed "to proceed without interruption".

However, disrupting the operations of the ICC appears to be part of a clear effort to force the court to withdraw the arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Galante.

Israeli newspaper Novovovo reported last week that the United States would use sanctions to "exercise unprecedented pressure" to achieve this goal. "We will bring the court to its knees and then conclude the case through negotiations," the report quoted a senior Israeli official as saying.

With Trump back in the White House, ICC officials believe Israel will be better able to persuade the United States to use the powerful tools at its disposal to undermine the court, particularly against Chief Prosecutor Khan.

The Guardian reported last year that under the previous Trump administration, Israeli and U.S. officials coordinated efforts to put public and private pressure on his predecessor Bensouda, which sources said involved a diplomatic "smear campaign."

Multiple sources in the prosecutor's office said they believed the court was now more vulnerable to attacks and slander from the United States and Israel after sexual misconduct allegations against Khan emerged in October. Khan has denied the accusations and said he would cooperate with an external investigation into the allegations.