• Foreign Aid
• Freeze
• Reject
• Supreme Court
• Trump Administration

SUPREME COURT REJECTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S REQUEST TO FREEZE FOREIGN AID

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  CapitalTimesNews / 3 days
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• 2 min read

In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s request to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress frozen. The ruling, although not specifying when the funds must be released, allows lower courts to proceed with enforcing the release of the aid. The majority opinion, supported by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, noted that the lower courts should “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order” since the deadline to spend the money had already passed. Justice Samuel Alito, one of the four conservative justices who dissented, expressed strong opposition to the ruling, calling it “stunning.” Alito argued that a federal court should not overstep its authority by enforcing the release of the funds. The case revolves around billions in foreign aid allocated by Congress through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Trump administration froze the funds in January, citing efforts to cut spending and realign foreign aid with its policy agenda. Nonprofit groups that rely on the funding for global health and other programs challenged the administration’s move, arguing that it usurped Congress’s power to control government spending and violated federal law. The Supreme Court’s decision has been hailed by Democrats as a reaffirmation of congressional authority over federal spending. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York stated, “That money had already been appropriated, things were already in action, and so I think the Supreme Court ruled the right way, and now the administration needs to unfreeze them and allow those contractors and the work to be done”.