Supreme Court Lets Trump Freeze $4B in Foreign Aid

The Supreme Court halted a lower court order that mandated the Trump administration to spend $4 billion in foreign aid, which it aimed to cut via a “pocket rescission.” The high court’s Friday ruling marks the latest victory for the Trump administration on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.

The unsigned order from the high court made clear that the ruling “should not be read as a final determination on the merits” of the case. Instead, the administration showed it was entitled to have the federal district court’s order halted at this point of litigation.

“The Government, at this early stage, has made a sufficient showing that the Impoundment Control Act precludes respondents’ suit, brought pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, to enforce the appropriations at issue here. The Government has also made a sufficient showing that mandamus relief is unavailable to respondents. And, on the record before the Court, the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents,” the ruling said.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court earlier this month to block U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order requiring $4 billion in Congressionally-approved foreign aid to be prepared to be spent pending litigation, after various groups that receive foreign aid sued to compel the administration to spend the funds it aimed to axe via a “pocket rescission.”

A pocket rescission is when a president sends a rescission request to Congress at the end of the fiscal year so that the funds will expire before the legislature is likely to consider the request. With the funds at the center of the dispute slated to expire at the end of this month, the disputed $4 billion in funds are now likely to lapse before the request can be considered by Congress or be disbursed by the Executive Branch.

“This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits. The relief granted by the Court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief,” the unsigned order from the Supreme Court said.

Chief Justice John Roberts quickly granted an administrative stay pending the full court’s review of the emergency application. Friday’s order now pauses the order until the end of litigation in the case.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent to the order, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. Kagan took aim at the majority’s decision to grant a stay, arguing the Trump administration had failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm by spending the foreign aid funds.

“The standard for granting emergency relief is supposed to be stringent. The Executive has not come close to meeting it here. And the consequence of today’s grant is significant,” Kagan wrote.

“I appreciate that the majority refrains from offering a definitive view of this dispute and the questions raised in it. But the effect of its ruling is to allow the Executive to cease obligating $4 billion in funds that Congress appropriated for foreign aid, and that will now never reach its intended recipients. Because that result conflicts with the separation of powers, I respectfully dissent,” she added.

In recent months, the administration has won key victories in firing independent agency heads, mass layoffs of government agencies, and restrictions on immigration operations, among other wins.

The Supreme Court will return on Oct. 6 for its upcoming term, with regular oral arguments and full merit-based decisions. President Donald Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs and his firing of FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter will be two key early cases the justices will hear in their upcoming term.