Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Trump’s administration to withhold more than $4 billion in foreign aid funding, granting its request for emergency relief in a dispute over money that Congress has already approved.
The high court’s decision effectively extends an order that Chief Justice John Roberts had issued earlier this month, which temporarily froze a district court injunction requiring the Trump administration to spend the money Congress appropriated for foreign-aid projects by the end of September. The court appeared to divide 6-3, with Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s three liberals, dissenting.
The Supreme Court said in an unsigned order that the harm to the executive branch’s ability to conduct foreign affairs appears to outweigh the potential harm faced by the plaintiffs, which are organizations and businesses that receive funding for foreign aid projects. It added that the decision “should not be read as a final determination on the merits. The relief granted by the Court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief.”
The legal fight over foreign aid
The dispute before the justices involves a tranche of more than $4 billion Congress approved last year for overseas development assistance, peacekeeping operations and to promote democracy globally, among other priorities. Mr. Trump notified Congress last month that he is seeking to claw back $4.9 billion before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 through a maneuver known as a “pocket rescission.”
The Government Accountability Office has said the move is illegal.
But the Supreme Court said in its decision that at this stage in the proceedings, the government “has made a sufficient showing” that the Impoundment Control Act, the mechanism for the president to move to cancel congressionally approved federal funding, precludes the plaintiffs’ suit. That lawsuit sought to make the president comply with appropriations law passed last year.
In a dissenting opinion, Kagan said the stakes in the case are high, as it involves the allocation of power between the executive branch and Congress.
“[T]he consequence of today’s grant is significant. I appreciate that the majority refrains from offering a definitive view of this dispute and the questions raised in it,” she wrote. “But the effect of its ruling is to allow the Executive to cease obligating $4 billion in funds that Congress appropriated for foreign aid, and that will now never reach its intended recipients. Because that result conflicts with the separation of powers, I respectfully dissent.”
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled in early September that the administration’s refusal not to spend congressionally approved funds is likely illegal under a federal law governing the agency rule-making process. The judge said the Trump administration could withhold the funding only if Congress rescinded it through duly enacted legislation.
The dispute was brought by nonprofit organizations and development companies in February after the Trump administration issued a 90-day pause of foreign development assistance to review whether programs were consistent with the president’s foreign policy.
It has since ping-ponged through the courts, including the Supreme Court back in March. Then, the high court split 5-4 in deciding to leave in place an order from Ali that required the Trump administration to pay roughly $2 billion in invoices for foreign-aid work that had already been performed.
In the latest development in the case, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last month that the nonprofits and businesses could not sue on grounds the administration violated the separation of powers by unilaterally declining to spend congressionally approved foreign-aid funds. The panel voted 2-1 to wipe away an order from Ali that had prohibited the government from withholding the money Congress appropriated last year for foreign assistance programs.
But the D.C. Circuit panel later issued an amended opinion that opened up an avenue for the nonprofits and businesses to seek relief on different legal grounds. On the heels of that decision, Mr. Trump informed Congress of his plan to rescind the $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding, which he said supported “wasteful” programs that did not align with his “America First” foreign policy agenda.
The plaintiffs then filed a new request for preliminary relief with Ali, and the judge found that the Trump administration had a duty to comply with Congress’s directives by spending the $4 billion by the end of September, when the fiscal year ends.
The Trump administration asked the D.C. Circuit to freeze Ali’s latest order. After the appeals court declined to do so, the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
In a filing with the high court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the district court’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.”
“The President can hardly speak with one voice in foreign affairs or in dealings with Congress when the district court is forcing the Executive Branch to advocate against its own objectives,” Sauer wrote.
The solicitor general said Ali’s injunction “puts the executive branch at war with itself” by requiring it to spend the same $4 billion that the president wants to claw back.
But lawyers for the plaintiffs said that the government has been obligated to spend the money approved by Congress for specific purposes since at least March 2024. They wrote in a filing that the appropriations legislation enacted by Congress last year remains binding on the executive branch.
“[T]he upshot of the government’s theory is that Congress’s signature law meant to control impoundments actually provided the President vast new powers to impound funds, and made it virtually impossible to challenge impoundments in court,” the lawyers said. “Congress would not have enacted such a self-defeating statute.”
The plaintiffs warned that allowing the president to withhold the money for foreign assistance would threaten the viability of groups that receive federal dollars for projects overseas. For one of the organizations, Democracy International, 98% of its revenues in 2024 came from awards from the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to court filings. Lawyers warned the company would be at risk of bankruptcy if the expiring appropriations are not spent.
“The pocket rescission of democracy promotion funds is an existential threat to Democracy International,” the plaintiffs wrote.
