CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The government of President Nicolas Maduro demanded that Washington stop piling on punishing financial sanctions aimed at forcing a regime change in Venezuela as it took its case to the International Criminal Court on Thursday.

Maduro’s top diplomat accused the Trump administration of causing suffering and death among millions of Venezuelans in the last several years.

“We believe that these unilateral, coercive measures are crimes against humanity,” Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said in a news conference after filing the complaint. “They also violate international law and human rights.”

The White House is openly trying to drive Maduro from power and was the first of nearly 60 nations to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate president. They argue that Maduro’s re-election in 2018 was invalid in part because the most popular opposition politicians were barred from participating.

Trump recently ushered Guaido into a Oval Office meeting and called Maduro a “tyrant.”

Maduro critics say the socialist leader is responsible for the oil-rich nation’s collapse, with shortages of basic services like water, lights, gas and medical care that have driven at least 4.5 million to emigrate in recent years.

The Trump administration first hit Venezuela’s state-run oil company with sanctions aiming to cut off Maduro’s government from a vast source of wealth, flowing from the world’s largest oil reserves.

It followed by putting dozens of Venezuelans in Maduro’s inner circle on its sanctions list — including Maduro himself. Any of their U.S. assets were frozen and U.S. citizens are banned from doing business with them.