- calendar_today August 24, 2025
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Attorneys for the Trump administration made an emergency request to the Supreme Court late on Tuesday, seeking to stop the spending of billions in foreign aid that Congress has already appropriated. The application takes the case about payments to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) back to the Supreme Court for the second time in less than six months.
Nearly $12 billion in foreign aid had been specifically set aside for USAID before fiscal year 2020 expired on September 30, and is legally required to be released before the end of the fiscal year. In January, just days after returning to the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending nearly all foreign aid spending on his first day back in office. The White House said at the time the move was part of an effort to stop “waste, fraud, and abuse” in U.S. spending abroad.
The executive order was quickly challenged in federal court and, in February, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, DC, stopped the Trump administration from blocking the payments. The judge said that the White House was legally bound to continue releasing funding for all programs Congress has already approved. In an injunction, Ali ordered the Trump administration to resume making payments on billions of dollars in USAID grants.
The Trump administration appealed the decision and, on Friday, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit took up the case again. The appeals court decided, 2-1, to revoke Judge Ali’s injunction. Judge Karen L. Henderson, an appointee of George H.W. Bush, wrote for the majority and argued that the plaintiffs, a group of foreign aid organizations that had been seeking to have their grant payments restored, lacked standing to sue the Trump administration. Henderson argued that the groups did not have a valid “cause of action” based on a legal theory known as the doctrine of impoundment.
Although the appeals court’s decision is a win for Trump, a formal mandate from the court enforcing its decision has not yet been issued. The lack of a formal mandate has left Ali’s order in place, and the payment schedule the judge created technically still has to be adhered to by the administration. As a result, the Trump administration is now working against the clock to prevent being forced to release the full $12 billion before the fiscal year ends on September 30.
Emergencies at the Supreme Court
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Tuesday and asked the justices to step in, arguing that, if they don’t, the administration will be forced to “rapidly obligate some $12 billion in foreign-aid funds by September 30.” Sauer argued in the filing that the dispute over who has the final say on spending decisions between Congress and the president should not be “effectively prejudged by the district court.”
“The Court of Appeals is bound by Congress’s decision not to upset this delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits,” Sauer wrote. “Any lingering dispute about the proper disposition of funds that the President seeks to rescind shortly before they expire should be left to the political branches, not effectively prejudged by the district court.”
The plaintiffs in the case, a group of foreign aid organizations that receive funding through USAID, have a different argument. They argue that, even though the money has been set aside for their projects, Trump does not have the authority to block it. They argue that the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which Congress passed in the 1970s to rein in executive discretion over federal spending, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), are the primary statutory arguments that support their claims.
The case once again raises major questions about the scope of presidential power and the extent to which a president can exercise discretion over spending bills already signed into law by Congress. If the administration wins, it would set a precedent for presidential authority to rescind or delay congressionally approved spending, while a ruling for the plaintiffs could further restrict the power of the White House to control the budget.
The Supreme Court previously handed down a narrow 5-4 ruling on a nearly identical dispute earlier this year. The justices could now again weigh in on the case, now that the clock is ticking on the funding and billions of dollars of foreign aid are in play.
For the Trump administration, the decision to block the foreign aid payments before returning to the White House is part of an effort to change spending priorities and gain greater control over foreign assistance. For the aid groups themselves, the decision is a matter of life or death for some of the projects that they fund in countries around the world, as the groups argue that the money was already appropriated by Congress and must be disbursed.
The appeals court ruling has been allowed to remain in partial limbo as the Trump administration continues to appeal, and the White House is now seeking to quickly overturn the previous court decision by asking for relief from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s decision to either act on the administration’s emergency request or allow it to wither away will help to determine the fate of $12 billion in foreign aid spending and potentially set a precedent for the extent of presidential authority to rescind or delay congressionally approved payments.
