Supreme Court pauses order to release billions of dollars in foreign aid

Hours before a midnight deadline, the U.S. Supreme Court paused a judge’s order forcing the Trump administration to pay $2 billion in frozen foreign aid — giving the government a temporary reprieve for a directive issued by a U.S. District Court Tuesday afternoon. “The district court’s underlying orders are erroneous,” wrote the Trump administration in an emergency motion to the Supreme Court Wednesday night after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied its appeal. “The government is doing what it reasonably can to comply in good faith.” Chief Justice John Roberts stepped in late Wednesday night, with his order coming two weeks after the Trump administration was first mandated to unfreeze foreign assistance. The directive originally came from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali on Feb. 13, but 12 days later, Ali said there was “no evidence” the government had complied with his order — leading the judge to order they do so within 30-some hours. Instead, the Trump administration spent Wednesday canceling nearly 10,000 foreign assistance awards, stating that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had “individually reviewed” each terminated contract and grant channeled through the State Department and USAID. Those canceled include 90% of USAID’s contracts and grants, hollowing out what used to be the largest bilateral aid agency in the world. “Defendants are committed to fully moving forward with the remaining awards and programs that USAID and Secretary Rubio have determined to retain,” stated the court filing, which was submitted earlier this afternoon. But despite the culling, the government still owes billions of dollars to partners across the world — including for work performed before Donald Trump returned to the White House. They were supposed to pay $2 billion by midnight, despite the fact that the government had terminated up to 2,000 USAID staffers this week alone, along with thousands of contractors in the weeks prior. As of today, nearly all of the agency’s remaining direct hires have been placed on administrative leave. “This new order requiring payment of enormous sums of foreign-assistance money in less than 36 hours intrudes on the prerogatives of the Executive Branch,” wrote the Trump administration in the emergency motion on Wednesday. “The President’s power is at its apex — and the power of the judiciary is at its nadir in matters of foreign affairs.” Roberts, a conservative judge appointed by George W. Bush in 2005, seemed to agree. As the justice designated to handle emergency cases arising from the nation’s capital, Roberts was the one who ordered the reprieve, giving the organizations suing the Trump administration until noon on Friday to respond to the court filings. And the case — which will determine the fate of hundreds of organizations across the world — now hangs in the balance. “Nothing about this process has been in ‘good faith,’” said Liz Schrayer, the president of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, in a statement Wednesday. “Abruptly ending the review — just 30 days into a stated 90-day process — and gutting nearly all U.S. international assistance programs, dangerously undermines America’s ability to win.”