In January 2026, a rumor circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump's lawyers stopped him from leaving the country and going to Scotland for a golf tournament because he was wanted internationally for war crimes.
The rumor spread as a meme on Facebook, Threads and other social media outlets.
(Facebook user "Denmark and the rest of the world against Trump - for world peace!")
There is no evidence Trump's attorneys said this or that Trump stopped any international travel as a result. Trump has not been charged with or convicted of war crimes by an international or foreign court, and as such is not wanted for war crimes by other countries. We thus rate this claim as false.
We reached out to the White House for its response to such claims and will update this post accordingly.
As of this writing, Trump has not been charged with or convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court — the primary international court that charges and prosecutes people for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.
This is evidenced by a Reuters report from December 2025, citing an anonymous Trump administration official who said Trump was threatening to sanction the ICC if it did not amend its key statute, which would leave Trump and his officials subject to investigation by the court in the future. Snopes could not independently verify this report as of this writing, but we have not found evidence of any ongoing cases against Trump or his administration.
The Rome Statute established the ICC in 2002 and gave it the power to prosecute heads of state. The U.S. is not a party to the statute, and thus the ICC has limited jurisdiction over prosecuting U.S. citizens for crimes.
According to the Reuters report, the Trump administration was pressuring the ICC to drop its investigations of Israeli leaders' actions in Gaza and close earlier investigations of U.S. troops' actions in Afghanistan. In early 2025, the U.S. placed sanctions on nine ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges, as a result. However, the U.S. has not sanctioned the court as a whole.
While the administration reportedly expressed concern over potential future prosecutions, it is clear that at present Trump has not been subject to any formal investigations by the ICC.
With that in mind, Trump does not face the threat of arrest in Scotland while attending a golf tournament. The PGA Tour's Genesis Scottish Open is scheduled to take place in Scotland in July 2026. Trump visited Scotland in July 2025, and we asked the White House on whether he plans to visit again this year.
Based on publicly available information about his travel schedule, Trump made numerous international visits in 2025. However, his 2026 travel schedule is not completely finalized. Trump announced he will be visiting China in April, as well as the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January 2026.
Given his upcoming schedule, the idea that Trump's lawyers are making him restrict his international travel seems highly improbable, as well as the chance that Trump faces arrest for crimes that he has not formally been accused of.
For further reading, Snopes has previously covered reports of Trump threatening to sanction the ICC.