US President Donald Trump has not commented on the arrest of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant stemming from his deadly crackdown on drugs, contrary to claims circulating on social media. Posts spreading the false claim shared a falsified Washington Post graphic and an old clip of Trump denouncing the ICC at the United Nations.
“Thank you so much Mr President Donald Trump for your help,” reads part of the caption to a graphic shared on Facebook on March 12, 2025.
Purportedly created by the Washington Post newspaper, the graphic appears to show Trump’s response to Duterte’s arrest in Manila a day earlier (archived link).
The 79-year-old faces a charge of “the crime against humanity of murder”, according to the ICC, for a crackdown rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
According to the graphic, the US president spoke to China’s Xi Jinping about the “serious matter concerning our good friend Rodrigo”.
“We will stand behind him. We will protect Rodrigo and the Filipino people from the oppression you are facing,” reads Trump’s supposed response.. “I, and the United States will not allow any of our allies and friends to suffer, and we will impose sanctions against the Marcos Administration for the unlawful act they did.”
The same purported graphic was shared on Facebook and TikTok.
A similar claim was shared in a separate TikTok video that was viewed more than 480,000 times after it was posted on March 12.
The video, featuring a clip of Trump criticising the ICC, is captioned, “Donald Trump’s reaction to the arrest of former president Duterte”.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country,” Trump says in the clip.
The high-profile Duterte case comes while the ICC is under sanctions by Trump — a long-time critic of the UN-backed court — after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The clip was also shared on YouTube.
“Wow this is what we’ve been waiting for. President Trump, you are our hope,” read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: “Thank you President Donald for helping.”
As of March 14, there have been no official reports of Trump — who once described his relationship with his then-Philippine counterpart as “very good” during a 2017 visit to the Southeast Asian country — speaking in support of Duterte or commenting on the ICC proceedings (archived link).
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.