The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration on Friday to hold back $4 billion in foreign aid funds.
The justices temporarily halted an order by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, directing the administration to pay out billions in foreign aid in early September.
“[O]n the record before the Court, the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents,” the Supreme Court’s order states.
“This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits,” it continues. “The relief granted by the Court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief.”
Justice Elena Kagan noted in a dissent that the request raises “novel issues fundamental to the relationship between the President and Congress.”
“I appreciate that the majority refrains from offering a definitive view of this dispute and the questions raised in it,” Kagan wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “But the effect of its ruling is to allow the Executive to cease obligating $4 billion in funds that Congress appropriated for foreign aid, and that will now never reach its intended recipients.”
The Trump administration previously argued Ali’s order presented “a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.” It would have required spending the funds, which Trump canceled through a “pocket recession,” by Sept. 30.
“To have any hope of complying in time, the Executive Branch would have to immediately commence diplomatic discussions with foreign nations about the use of those funds—discussions the President considers counterproductive to foreign policy—and notify Congress about planned obligations that the President is strongly opposing,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a Sept. 8 emergency application.
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