Supreme Court Decision on Trump’s Illegal Foreign Aid Freeze: Background and Legal Implications
- On January 20, President Trump issued an executive order directing a wholesale “pause” of congressionally appropriated foreign-assistance funding.
- Three weeks later, representing AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Journalism Development Network (JDN), Public Citizen filed suit seeking relief from the Trump Administration’s actions that—illegally and unconscionably—froze funding and work related to nearly every U.S. foreign assistance mission.
- On February 13, the district court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the government to preserve the status quo that had prevailed prior to the executive order.
- The Trump administration has flouted the district court’s order for more than two weeks. USAID contracting officers said in anonymous affidavits that they were instructed to mass cancel grants and not to restart funding even after the court’s orders. By the time of the district court’s February 25 hearing—nearly two weeks after the TRO had issued—government counsel could not identify a single action the government had taken in the twelve days since the TRO to release frozen funds. As a result, the district court ordered the government to take certain steps to comply with the TRO by a date certain.
- Meanwhile, the freeze on payments to non-profits that engage in global humanitarian work is causing extraordinary and irreversible harm to the non-profits, their employees, and, most importantly, the people in need around the world who depend on their work.
- The Trump administration argued that the district court’s order unduly burdened them by requiring sudden payment of grants. However, all that was required in the February 25 order was for the government to resume payments by a date certain for work already performed.
- The appeal to the Supreme Court presented the basic rule-of-law issue of whether the Trump administration could ignore district court orders to comply with its rulings. The Court ruling means the Trump administration cannot ignore such orders.
- The case also implicated core separation of powers issues. Congress created foreign assistance programs, directed the State Department and USAID to implement them, and appropriated funding to do so. The administration’s conduct flouted Congress’s constitutional role under the separation of powers at the heart of our Constitution. The Court ruling means the Trump administration cannot trample on the basic separation of powers.
- Today’s resolution at the Supreme Court means the government must now resume the payments it has unlawfully frozen.
- Tomorrow, the plaintiffs will be arguing in court for a preliminary injunction to put a longer-term hold on the government’s freeze.
- Meanwhile, the Trump administration claims to have reviewed each foreign assistance grant individually and cancelled the vast majority of them, meaning the viability of the nation’s humanitarian assistance programs remains very much in jeopardy.
- For perspective on the humanitarian consequences of the administration’s actions, see here (acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID), here (New York Times), here (Global Health Council), and here (Anne Neilan and Linda-Gail Bekker, StatNews Opinion).