Is your argument that the US should subject itself to outside courts so long as the courts are doing work that we agree with morally? Because if you pull on that thread, it unravels into my original argument.

If you think that other countries face the same (or even a similar) level of attention by adversarial state actors as the US does, we have a fundamental disconnect on reality and aren't going to agree on anything.

My position remains that the US is too big a target to expose itself in the way you wish without incentivizing the court to turn into a weapon.

I understand the ideal of globalism and a rules-based liberal world order. But the reality is that different countries are different.

Amazon has to be much more diligent about their security than a mom and pop store, because Amazon is under attack 24/7 through every physical and digital attack vector you can imagine and many more that you cannot. They are a big juicy target because of their Great Power, which means that the standards of lesser companies are insufficient. To plug into Amazon's systems as a partner/vendor, you need to meet their bar.

The US is no different. We are under attack 24/7, from every possible angle. How do we stop China from placing a pawn as Prosecutor? China isn't a member of the ICC, and maybe they can't get to Karim. But many African and Latin American countries are ICC members, and China is increasingly growing their soft power in those regions along with their existing influence in Asia generally.

If the US subjects itself to the ICC, our enemies would put plans in place to exploit that vulnerability. It's an inevitable when, not an if. We're never going to put our citizens at the mercy of a council of tiny member states dependent on Russian oil and Chinese infrastructure investment.

Small countries, like small companies, don't understand what it means to have every attack vector inevitably discovered and exploited. The systems must be trustless.

International courts exist to exert their will on weak/failed/conquered states. That's all they can do.

The idea that a benevolent dictatorship is only good until a bad guy inevitably comes into the position shouldn't be controversial.

Black communities have historically had many objections to US law enforcement and justice. But since the US has real courts with real enforcement mechanisms, they still have to live under US law for better or worse. They can't just ignore rulings they disagree with.

Crappy US politicians can be voted out or impeached if enough Americans/representatives don't like the job they're doing.

The US is a big target, and our enemies are always looking for ways to gain power over us. Subjecting ourselves to a court run by a council of weaker nations would incentivize our enemies to stack the court with pawns and flunkies as a way to persecute key Americans. There's no benefit to us in return for opening up that obvious attack vector.

Yes, the US should subject itself to outside courts, as long as those courts are upholding human rights.

So either:

A) We aren't actually subjecting ourselves to international courts, because we're only listening to things that we agree with and were going to do anyway (since there is no enforcement mechanism). And we ignore them when we disagree.

or

B) We subject ourselves to international courts for better or worse. It's good at first, there is largely agreement on what human rights are and how they should be upheld. But maybe fascism and xenophobia keep rising in Europe. Maybe China and Russia manage to gain enough influence over the court through their geopolitical machinations (e.g., a pawn ends up being Prosecutor). Or maybe somebody on the court decides that the US war on drugs was effectively a genocide and calls for Biden's arrest. For whatever reason, it turns into a persecution arm or otherwise drifts out of alignment with US values on human rights. Inevitably, we withdraw and end up back at (A).

TL;DR; Courts and rulings without enforcement powers don't exist, and the US will never allow its citizens to be subject to a court that we do not have Constitutional authority over. Who decides which foreign courts are good, and what criteria do they use? How would we throw off the yoke of a tyrannical Prosecutor?

An unconditional surrender is a forfeiture of sovereignty by definition.

Still leading global finance and technology. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

1) Defending your citizens from foreign courts is good, actually. Neither the ICC nor the Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China can meddle in the affairs of US citizens.

2) Rules are only real if they can be enforced somehow -otherwise they're just suggestions that some people voluntarily follow. I'm not being edgy, here. A ruling that will never be enforced doesn't exist.