The U.S. Supreme Court paused a directive that the Trump administration resume foreign aid payments that had been suspended for weeks. What comes next?
Also in today’s edition: Blowback to the U.K.’s aid cuts in the form of a high-profile resignation.
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The Trump administration rushed to the Supreme Court on Wednesday with an emergency request to stop a lower court’s order that it release a tranche of nearly $2 billion in suspended aid funds by midnight.
But it was “an emergency of [the government’s] own making” — that’s how the USAID partners that are suing the administration framed it when they had a chance to present their side of the story to the Supreme Court on Friday. The plaintiffs argued the administration refused to comply with a ruling by District Judge Amir Ali dating back to Feb. 13 that it lift its blanket freeze on aid funding and pay its bills.
“Meanwhile, the government stripped line-level officers most familiar with the relevant awards of authority to make disbursements and channeled purported ‘review’ of payments through a handful of political appointees,” the plaintiffs stated.
Not only that, but the administration eliminated all but 10% of USAID’s portfolio, saying that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had personally reviewed each one of the 5,800 terminations sent out — a claim that opponents say strains credulity considering the tight timeframe involved.
And time, remember, is not on the plaintiffs’ side.
“The government’s continued noncompliance with the district court’s [temporary restraining order] forced one respondent to lay off 110 employees yesterday,” the organizations wrote in Friday’s filing. “Another will default on severance obligations, triggering civil liability and potential regulatory enforcement, if it does not receive payment for past work by today. Meanwhile, many of those who depend on respondents’ programming face starvation, disease, and death.”
The ruling by the Supreme Court, which paused Judge Ali’s midnight directive, could come any day. Meanwhile, the case in district court — presided over by Judge Ali — will continue, explained Mitchell Warren, the executive director of the AVAC, one of the plaintiffs.
He tells my colleague Elissa Miolene that he expects the judge to schedule a hearing for early this week, one that will continue proceedings around the blanket funding freeze and en masse terminations that have hit organizations across the world.
Read: Aid groups present case to Supreme Court as decision looms
Background reading: 'God Bless America' and the death of 10,000 projects
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DOGE whistle
A senior USAID official who blamed U.S. President Donald Trump’s political appointees for failing to deliver lifesaving assistance has been put on leave, Elissa writes.
“USAID’s failure to implement lifesaving humanitarian assistance under the waiver is the result of political leadership at USAID, the Department of State, and DOGE, who have created and continue to create intentional and/or unintentional obstacles that have wholly prevented implementation,” Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for USAID’s global health bureau, wrote in a Feb. 28 internal memo seen by Devex.
Enrich describes how Trump’s political appointees refused to pay for work already completed; blocked and restricted access to USAID’s payment systems; continually changed the definitions of “lifesaving” humanitarian assistance; and terminated “the most critical implementing mechanisms necessary” for bringing that foreign aid back to life.
Before he was sliced from the agency, Enrich was compiling one more document — which broke down in great detail the consequences of the foreign aid freeze, from an additional 71,000 to 166,000 malaria deaths a year, to more than 127,000 cases of mpox — including more than 34,000 cases in the United States.
“The temporary pause on foreign aid and delays in approving lifesaving humanitarian assistance (LHA) for global health will lead to increased death and disability, accelerate global disease spread, contribute to destabilizing fragile regions, and heightened security risks — directly endangering American national security, economic stability, and public health,” Enrich wrote.
Read: USAID official dismissed after detailing 'failure' to give lifesaving aid
ICYMI: The mess inside Rubio's 'lifesaving' waivers
So long and thanks for all the cuts
Despite being no stranger to foreign aid cuts, the United Kingdom still rocked the development world last week when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced it would slash aid to 0.3% of gross national income — down from its current 0.5% — to pay for more defense spending.
Outrage was swift and furious. Some responded with rhetoric; others — like Annaliese Dodds — with action.
Dodds resigned as the country’s development minister, warning in a letter that the cuts “will remove food and healthcare from desperate people — deeply harming the UK’s reputation.”
“I know you have been clear that you are not ideologically opposed to international development. But the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID,” she wrote.
Starmer had told members of Parliament that a higher defense budget “can only be funded through hard choices,” and Dodds said she understood that some of the increase might need to come from aid.
“Instead, the tactical decision was taken for ODA to absorb the entire burden.”
Read: UK development minister resigns over aid cuts
Self-inflicted wounds
Most high-level diplomatic exchanges are just that — diplomatic. But there are exceptions. No, I’m not talking about the big Oval Office blowup between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I’m talking about a blunt rebuke doled out by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who called out the Trump administration for its “severe cuts” to foreign aid.
Guterres told reporters outside the U.N. Security Council on Friday that those cuts “will make the world less healthy, less safe, and less prosperous” — taking direct aim at Rubio’s refrain that the U.S. will only keep aid that makes the U.S. “safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”
The U.N. chief ticked off a litany of crises that are not only devastating lives abroad but could eventually backfire on the U.S.
“In South Sudan, funding has run out for programs to support people who have fled the conflict in neighboring Sudan, leaving border areas dangerously overcrowded," Guterres said. “Meanwhile, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime will be forced to stop many of its counter-narcotics programs, including the one fighting the fentanyl crisis, and dramatically reduce activities against human trafficking.”
He warned: “The reduction of America’s humanitarian role and influence will run counter to American interests globally.”
Read: US cuts make the world less healthy, safe, and prosperous, UN chief says
Abdication of authority
The U.S. has for over two decades been considered a leader, even a savior some would say, in the fight against HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa. Now it’s effectively abandoned that leadership role, as organization after organization has been hit with termination notices in the wake of USAID’s demise.
My colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo details the profound, far-reaching effects of these terminations, from limiting screening and testing for HIV and TB to the loss of services for survivors of gender-based violence.
It will also hurt HIV research. Linda-Gail Bekker, CEO of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, says they had three clinical trials lined up, but they have been stopped “with the immunogen sitting in the fridge and [we’re] not being able to utilize them.”
Read: ‘Disaster’ as health programs reel from USAID termination
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In other news
The second Ebola patient in Uganda, a 4-year-old child, has died, bringing the death toll to two and confirmed cases to 10 as the outbreak continues. [VOA]
On March 4, Egypt will present a Gaza reconstruction plan ensuring the Palestinian population remains in the Gaza Strip. [Reuters]
U.S. aid cuts to the U.N. Population Fund will affect 640,000 Ukrainian women and girls, eliminating critical gender-based violence and reproductive health services. [UN News]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
