Trump asks SCOTUS to uphold freeze on billions in USAID payments
At issue is nearly $12 billion in funding Congress approved for USAID, which was targeted by President Donald Trump on his first day on office
By Breanne Deppisch , Bill Mears Fox News
Published August 27, 2025 3:48pm EDT | Updated August 27, 2025 3:50pm EDT
Lawyers for the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Tuesday night asking the justices to halt a lower court injunction and allow it to freeze billions in foreign aid spending previously allocated by Congress — kicking the issue of USAID funding back to the high court for the second time in roughly six months.
At issue is nearly $12 billion in funding allocated to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and owed by the end of the fiscal year in September. The majority of those funds were axed by President Donald Trump almost immediately after taking office, under the broader mantle of slashing foreign aid and eliminating so-called "waste, fraud, and abuse."
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in an emergency filing Tuesday that, absent intervention from the high court, the Trump administration would be forced to "rapidly obligate some $12 billion in foreign-aid funds" owed by September 30, or the end of the fiscal year.
Those payments have been held up in court for months, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office in January seeking to block nearly all foreign aid spending, as part of his administration’s broader crackdown on waste, fraud, and abuse.
That order was blocked by a federal judge in D.C. earlier this year. That judge, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, ordered the Trump administration to resume payments on billions of dollars in funding for USAID projects that were previously approved by Congress.
That order was overturned this month by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled 2-1 to vacate the lower court injunction.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-asks-scotus-uphold-freeze-billions-usaid-payments
