Judge orders Trump to pay USAID partners, rejects 'unbounded' power

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration — once again — to pay USAID partners for billions of dollars in foreign aid work completed before Feb. 13. But this time, the judge’s mandate came with a warning: The president does not have “unbounded power” in the realm of foreign affairs. And because of that, the Trump administration must spend the money that’s already been appropriated by Congress. “The constitutional power over whether to spend foreign aid is not the President’s own — and it is Congress’s own,” wrote U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in a preliminary injunction filed Monday night. “The Court accordingly finds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their separation of powers claims and rejects Defendants’ unbridled understanding of the President’s foreign policy power.” To that end, Ali blocked the government from “unlawfully impounding congressionally appropriated funds” — in other words, U.S. President Donald Trump cannot refuse to spend money that’s already been allocated by Congress. The judge also ordered the Trump administration to reverse any terminations, suspensions, and stop-work orders for any USAID or State Department awards that received such notices between Jan. 20 and Feb. 13. While he did not restore the nearly 10,000 awards terminated late last month, Ali did require the government to pay its partners at the rate of 300 payments per day. “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 one of the organizations suing the Trump administration, the AVAC. “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 was a point Ali repeatedly came back to. While the judge did not force the Trump administration to reverse the bulk of its terminations — nearly 10,000 were issued late last month, coming after Ali’s Feb. 13 cut-off date — he did state that the Trump administration’s actions involved “a departure” from a “firmly established constitutional partnership” between Congress and the executive branch. “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 stated. Last March, Congress appropriated $58.3 billion in foreign assistance for fiscal year 2024. That included more than $10 billion for global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, $4.7 billion for international disaster assistance, and $1.7 billion in USAID operating expenses. Ali’s order seems to require the Trump administration to spend what is left of those funds. “It’s a partial victory, and it certainly helps, at least, in getting the government to pay its bills — which is what we raised to begin with,” Warren said. “I think that is, first and foremost, really important.” The order follows a string of mandates from Ali, who has presided over the case since it was brought by USAID partners in early February. Two weeks after Ali’s first mandate on Feb. 13 — which required the Trump administration to thaw its funding freeze — the judge found no evidence that the government had done so. As a result, he ordered the Trump administration to pay its partners within 30 hours. Immediately, the government tried to appeal that decision. The Supreme Court temporarily suspended Ali’s order but ultimately handed the case back to the District Court. It was then up to Ali to decide what the government must pay and when it should feasibly pay it, the high court said. And on Friday, Ali convened the parties with those instructions in mind. Ultimately, he ordered the Trump administration to pay just those involved in the suit — a group that included the AVAC, Chemonics, DAI, and others — by Monday, March 10, referring to that directive as a “first concrete step.” Now, he’s extending that move for the remaining USAID and State Department partners, citing the “existential threats to survival” the foreign aid freeze has created for organizations across the country. “Defendants have yet to offer any explanation, let alone one supported by the record, for why a blanket suspension setting off a shockwave and upending reliance interests for thousands of businesses and organizations around the country was a rational precursor to reviewing programs,” Ali wrote in his Monday order. “Instead, Defendants assert that the Executive Order and January 24 implementing memorandum provided ‘more than enough explanation’ given the Executive’s ‘vast’ powers over foreign affairs.” 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. “We need to see how the government responds,” said Warren, speaking to Devex Monday night. “Will payments begin to flow? Will they respond to the order and actually spend the money that Congress told them to spend? And if not, what’s the recourse? Those are the big questions for what might come next.” Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger contributed to this story.