Supreme Court keeps in place Trump funding freeze that threatens
billions of dollars in foreign aid
[September 27, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday extended an order that
allows President Donald Trump's administration to keep frozen nearly $5
billion in foreign aid, handing him another victory in a dispute over
presidential power.
With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court's conservative
majority granted the Republican administration’s emergency appeal in a
case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid.
Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking
disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years
ago.
The Justice Department sought the high court's intervention after U.S.
District Judge Amir Ali ruled that Trump's action was likely illegal and
that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the
funding.
The federal appeals court in Washington declined to put Ali's ruling on
hold, but Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked it on Sept. 9.
The full court indefinitely extended Roberts' order.
The court has previously cleared the way for the Trump administration to
strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of migrants, fire
thousands of federal employees, oust transgender members of the military
and remove the heads of independent government agencies.
The legal victories, while not final rulings, all have come through
emergency appeals, used sparingly under previous presidencies, to
fast-track cases to the Supreme Court, where decisions are often handed
down with no explanation.
Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in a letter Aug. 28 that
he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid,
effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative
branch.
He used what’s known as a pocket rescission. That’s a rarely used
maneuver when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end
of a current budget year to not spend the approved money. The late
notice essentially flips the script. Under federal law, Congress has to
approve the rescission within 45 days or the money must be spent. But
the budget year will end before the 45-day window closes, and in this
situation the White House is asserting that congressional inaction
allows it to not spend the money.
The majority wrote in an unsigned order that Trump’s authority over
foreign affairs weighed heavily in its decision, while cautioning that
it was not making a final ruling in the case.
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President Donald Trump, center, is escorted by Air Force Col. the
Christopher M. Robinson, commander of 89th Airlift Wing, right, as
he walks from Marine One to board Air Force One, Friday, Sept. 26,
2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
But that was cold comfort to the dissenters. “The effect is to
prevent the funds from reaching their intended recipients — not just
now but (because of their impending expiration) for all time,”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Sonia
Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one
of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings
relative to the deficit and possible damage to America’s reputation
abroad as people lose access to food supplies and development
programs.
The high court's decision “further erodes separation of powers
principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order," said
Nick Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group who
represented the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition in the case. “It
will also have a grave humanitarian impact on vulnerable communities
throughout the world.”
Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that
another $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze
would be spent before the end of the fiscal year next Tuesday.
The case has been winding its way through the courts for months, and
Ali said he understood that his ruling would not be the last word on
the matter.
“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical
importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the
executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally
appropriated funds,” he wrote.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit threw out an earlier injunction Ali had issued to require
that the money be spent. But the three-judge panel did not shut down
the lawsuit.
After Trump issued his rescission notice, the plaintiffs returned to
Ali’s court and the judge issued the order that’s now being
challenged.
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