(José Niño, Headline USA) On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote to reinstate a lower-court order for the Trump administration to release frozen foreign aid.
The court threw out an emergency appeal from the Trump administration. It also instructed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to clarify his previous order that required the quick release of close to $2 billion in aid for work that had already been rendered.
While this ruling is a short-term defeat for President Donald Trump, the non-profit organizations and businesses that took the Trump administration to court are still anxiously waiting for their compensation.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissenting opinion, arguing Ali does not have the authority to order the payments. Alito asserted that the Court is rewarding “an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”
The court’s ruling keeps Ali’s temporary restraining order that had halted the spending freeze. Ali is presiding over a hearing Thursday to mull over the implementation of a much longer pause.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, two conservatives and the latter being appointed to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump in 2020, sided with the three liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to form the majority opinion.
Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch joined Alito in dissenting on this question.
The United States Agency for International Development controversy kicked off when the Trump administration issued an executive order to wipe out roughly 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts. This decision resulted in the termination of close to 5,800 out of 6,200 multi-year USAID contract awards, representing a cut of $54 billion. On top of that, 4,100 State Department awards were scrapped.
The Trump administration, in addition to Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk, have contended that USAID projects promote a liberal agenda, are financially wasteful, and do not advance genuine U.S. interests.
The lawsuit that was filed in response to Trump’s order argued that the pause in foreign aid was in violation of federal law.
On Feb. 13, 2025, Ali issued a ruling ordering the restoration of the funding. In response, the Trump administration appealed, describing Ali’s order “incredibly intrusive and profoundly erroneous” and protesting the timeline to release the money.
USAID was founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to counter Soviet Union influence during the Cold War and advance U.S. soft power through socioeconomic development. But since then, it’s been involved in fomenting unrest against democratically elected governments abroad.
In 2003, for instance, the Bush administration used the USAID to foment a coup against the Georgian government. According to antiwar.com editorial director Scott Horton, the coup was assisted by a non-profit organization called the Liberty Institute, which at the time was funded by the USAID and George Soros.
More recently, the Biden administration’s head of USAID, Samantha Power, was involved in numerous regime-change efforts—most notoriously, in Libya.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
