A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration — yet again — to pay its foreign aid bills, although this time he took his ruling one step further.
Also in today’s edition: Is the dismantling of USAID officially over? According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it is, though what comes next is as shrouded in uncertainty as the six-week review has been — and yes, it’s only been six weeks.
+ U.K. aid is being cut to fund defense. What does this mean for the U.K.'s global role? Join us today at 10 a.m. ET (2 p.m. GMT) to discuss the cuts’ implications and the future of U.K. aid. Save your spot now.
This is a preview of Newswire
Sign up to this newsletter for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development, in your inbox daily.
Last night, U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay USAID’s implementing partners billions of dollars in foreign assistance for work completed before Feb. 13, although he did not restore the roughly 10,000 contracts recently canceled by the administration that gutted over 80% of USAID’s portfolio.
Still, the judge had a clear warning about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches: The president does not have “unbounded power” in the realm of foreign affairs, he stated, and because of that, the Trump administration must spend the money that’s already been appropriated by Congress.
“The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place,” he added.
“This ruling sends a really clear message that the administration acted inappropriately, and that no one is above the law,” said Mitchell Warren, who heads the AVAC, one of the organizations suing the Trump administration. “The administration is being told that there is another branch of government, the legislative branch, that needs to be involved. That you have to respect the power of the purse, which resides in Congress. And, that you have to pay your bills.”
It’s expected that the government will appeal Ali’s order. In the meantime, both the Trump administration and the organizations suing it are required to provide a status report by Friday, March 14, after which Ali will hold another hearing.
Read: Judge orders Trump to pay USAID partners, rejects 'unbounded' power
In terms of those terminated contracts, has the bloodletting ceased? The wounds are still raw, but do we at least have clarity on where USAID goes from here?
There are no definitive answers, but one thing is clear: Not much is left of what was once the world’s premier bilateral aid agency, and what still exists will look very different in the future.
After Rubio’s highly publicized blowup with throwing-government-in-a-wood-chipper-in-chief Elon Musk, he took to Musk’s social media platform to announce that 5,200 programs representing about 83% of USAID’s work had been terminated, saying the canceled contracts “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.”
That leaves about 18% — or roughly 1,000 programs — to be kept “in consultation with Congress,” although these will now be administered “more effectively” under the State Department, Rubio wrote.
And in an apparent diplomatic detente, Rubio even thanked Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the State Department’s staff for this “overdue and historic reform” — to which the billionaire responded: “Tough, but necessary. Good working with you. The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State.”
But this is just the latest chapter in what is sure to be a long saga. As my colleague Sara Jerving writes, the announcement comes in the wake of a widespread culling of the agency's workforce; closure of its headquarters; recall of its staff stationed abroad; well-documented failures of the waiver system; a discombobulated ping-pong of termination and rescission notices; and ongoing legal battles to, among other things, get implementing partners paid for work they’ve already done.
“Anyone who is serious about our international assistance should be serious about reform and ensuring our aid delivers results for the American people,” Liz Schrayer, president and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, said in a statement. “Yet, I can’t imagine Congress is comfortable with a rushed review process cancelling 83% of programs that they themselves have championed over decades — a process that wasn’t transparent or open to meaningful bipartisan consultation.”
Read: Remaining USAID programs now under State Department, 5,200 programs canceled
Beyond the question of what’s next for what’s left of USAID, the other question on everyone’s minds is who can step in to fill the void left by the world’s largest donor. There are no easy answers.
China is often trotted out as a potential successor, but there’s widespread skepticism that it will actually opt to fill the vacuum left by USAID, which spent about $40 billion a year in aid. Currently, China gives somewhere between $5 billion and $7.9 billion to foreign aid, Devex contributing reporter Susannah Birkwood writes.
Europe is another oft-cited alternative source of cash, but powerhouses such as the United Kingdom and Germany have all been busy slashing their own aid budgets. It's not that the world is following the U.S.' lead; its aid cuts were just one example of a larger global trend in aid, says Deborah Doane, author of “The INGO Problem: Power, Privilege, and Renewal.”
“USAID was just the latest in the line — albeit the biggest,” she says. “Foreign aid has been declining for years.”
The longer-term impacts are harder to predict, Thomas Byrnes of MarketImpact says. “If you throw a hand grenade into a room full of people, you need a supercomputer to tell you exactly what’s going to happen, but even a 2-year-old can tell you it’s not going to be good.”
Read more: How will the rest of the world respond to lights-out at USAID? (Pro)
Related: The US aid freeze has left a funding gap. What if China steps in? (Pro)
+ Not yet a Devex Pro member? Start your 15-day free trial today to access all our expert analyses, insider insights, funding data, events, and more. Check out all the exclusive content available to you.
This isn’t exactly a great time to be asking for a lot of money. Perhaps taking that into account, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has pushed back its high-level replenishment summit by three months, Sara writes. It’s now hosting the event on June 25 in Brussels — in conjunction with the European Union and Gates Foundation — as it asks donors for at least $9 billion to fund its work from 2026 through 2030.
The U.S. already made its commitment to Gavi’s replenishment under former President Joe Biden last June, pledging at least $1.58 billion. Gavi received some $300 million from the U.S. government last December but there’s uncertainty about future U.S. payments. Gavi would expect to receive more funding from the U.S. in the third quarter of this year, but Congress hasn’t yet finalized the federal budget for 2025.
Read: Gavi delays $9B replenishment event amid tough fundraising environment
+ For more content like this, sign up for Devex CheckUp, our free, weekly global health newsletter.
Lynda Blanchard, an Alabama real estate investor, major Republican donor, and former U.S. ambassador to Slovenia, is set for another diplomatic posting — this time representing the U.S. at the U.N.’s Rome-based food agencies. If confirmed, she will be the U.S. ambassador to the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a role previously held by WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain and, most recently, long-time foreign policy adviser Jeffrey Prescott.
Blanchard’s path to a top U.S. food diplomacy role hasn’t followed the typical trajectory. A real estate investor-turned-philanthropist, she co-founded the 100X Development Foundation, a nonprofit focused on poverty alleviation. But her most significant political credential may be her wallet: Between 2015 and 2018, she and her husband poured more than $2 million into Republican campaigns, including Trump’s, according to ProPublica. That backing helped land her a diplomatic post in 2019 as U.S. ambassador to Slovenia, first lady Melania Trump’s home country.
Representing U.S. interests in Rome will come with a new set of priorities. At a WFP executive board meeting last month, the U.S. delegation made clear that the fund should not advance gender ideology or DEI programs and hinted at further shifts, including a potential recalibration of climate change initiatives.
Finland pledges €16 million ($17.44 million) in new humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which will be distributed through the U.N. and Red Cross. [Yahoo News]
Gaza is facing critical water shortages, with only 10% of the population having safe drinking water, UNICEF warned. [UN News]
Only 17% of cities worldwide meet air quality standards, and six of the nine most polluted cities are in India, according to a new report. [AP]
Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.