US Supreme Court Tells Trump He Must Pay Out $2B in Withheld Foreign Aid

A day after US President Donald Trump announced in his address to Congress that he had frozen all foreign aid, the Supreme Court voted that the president must comply with a district court and distribute about $2 billion to aid workers who have delivered supplies and help to communities around the world.

The news doesn’t mean that entities such as USAID, whose operations were halted last month by the administration’s recent controversial government-efficiency measures, will be providing more humanitarian aid to Ukraine soon or hiring employees there, but it does send a signal that Trump’s recent moves will not go unchecked.

The news last month of USAID’s (at least temporary) shutdown shocked many Ukrainians and led to the suspension of numerous projects deemed by many to be critically important to Ukraine.

The 5-4 decision on Wednesday was sharply contested in the mostly Trump-friendly court, with three of the nine justices appointed by Trump himself. The highest appeals court in the land, and also the final arbiter of constitutional law, it has been extremely accommodating recently to the former and current president, most significantly granting his immunity for any crimes he commits while discharging the duties of his office.

The decision upholds the ruling of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which had entered a temporary restraining order, enjoining the administration from enforcing its directives halting disbursements of congressionally allocated aid, specifically foreign-development assistance funds.

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Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the three liberal judges in the majority.

In their dissent, the four very conservative justices on the panel, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Cavanaugh, wrote: “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No.’”

The dissenters did not address the issue that the money was allocated by Congress and the power of expenditure was granted exclusively to the legislative branch – what is known as the “power of the purse strings.”

The majority did not elaborate in its relatively brief decision but said the district court judge must “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order.”