In a dramatic escalation of a months-long legal tug-of-war, President Donald Trump’s administration returned to the U.S. Supreme Court this week, seeking to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen just weeks before a critical funding deadline. The move, announced on August 27, 2025, marks the latest chapter in a high-stakes battle over the president’s authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funds and the future of U.S. global health and development programs.
The administration’s emergency appeal—filed late Tuesday, according to reporting by Politico and the Associated Press—asks the Supreme Court to intervene by September 2. Without such swift action, the Justice Department warns, the government would be forced to rapidly disburse $12 billion in foreign aid before the funds expire on September 30. The Justice Department described the situation as one of “irreparable harm,” arguing that the lower courts’ orders threaten not only the administration’s foreign policy priorities but also the constitutional separation of powers.
“Given the vast sums involved and the significance of the case to the separation of powers and U.S. foreign policy, the district court’s holdings, if allowed to stand, would clearly warrant this court’s attention, and those holdings would not survive review,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s emergency application, as cited by Courthouse News Service.
The dispute centers on a January 20 executive order from President Trump, which instructed federal agencies to “immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations.” The stated goal: to review these programs for alignment with Trump’s foreign policy objectives. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up with a memorandum that froze foreign-aid programs funded by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
This abrupt halt set off a wave of lawsuits from nonprofit organizations and private contractors—among them the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council—who argued that withholding congressionally appropriated funds violated both the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. According to the Associated Press, these groups asserted that the funding freeze had already shuttered urgent, life-saving programs abroad, cutting off support for global health, HIV/AIDS, and development initiatives.
In March 2025, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the administration to make available the full amount of foreign assistance funds Congress had set aside for fiscal year 2024. Ali concluded that the administration had likely violated federal law and the Constitution by canceling funds earmarked by Congress for foreign aid. The order directed the government to pay contractors and grant recipients within 36 hours for work already completed—a move that forced the administration to pay nearly $2 billion in contractual obligations prior to the aid pause, as reported by the Tucson Sentinel.
The Trump administration quickly appealed, but in March, the Supreme Court—split 5-4—declined to intervene, instead instructing Judge Ali to clarify the government’s obligations under the temporary restraining order. The case then bounced back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which fast-tracked the government’s appeal. On August 13, a divided three-judge panel lifted Judge Ali’s order, siding with the administration and citing the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. The panel argued that only the U.S. comptroller general, not private plaintiffs, could challenge the president’s refusal to spend appropriated funds. However, the full appeals court has yet to act, so Judge Ali’s injunction remains in effect for now.
The administration’s latest Supreme Court filing contends that the district court “installed itself as supervisor-in-chief of further spending and recissions proposals, issuing a preliminary injunction ordering the government to make available for obligation tens of billions of dollars in appropriated foreign aid funds and to spend many billions of dollars by September 30, before those appropriations expire.” Sauer warned that this “blueprint” could allow any prospective recipient of federal funds to bypass congressional procedures and enlist the courts to preempt negotiations between the executive and legislative branches.
Trump, for his part, has consistently portrayed much of America’s foreign aid as wasteful spending that doesn’t align with his policy goals. Since his return to office, the administration has terminated thousands of foreign aid grants, aiming to, in Trump’s words, “root out wasteful programs that do not align with his policy goals.” The administration officially shut down USAID in July 2025, a move with potentially far-reaching consequences. As The Lancet reported in July, USAID programs have saved more than 90 million lives over the past two decades. Researchers estimate that if the Trump administration’s funding cuts continue through 2030, as many as 14 million people who might otherwise have lived could die.
Nonprofit plaintiffs and their legal teams have pushed back hard against the administration’s urgency. Lauren Bateman, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and an attorney at Public Citizen, argued that the injunction has been in place for over five months and poses “no greater emergency now than it did for the last five months.” She stated, “It has been over five months since the preliminary injunction was issued, and the government never sought a stay. But now they are running to the Supreme Court, claiming at the last second that they would be harmed by compliance with the district court’s order. The Supreme Court should see through that ruse.”
The legal battle has not only exposed deep constitutional questions about the separation of powers but also triggered fierce debate about the role of the judiciary in overseeing executive spending decisions. The administration contends that the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the executive branch to distribute congressionally appropriated funds, but Trump and his legal team insist that the judiciary’s role should be minimal, leaving such negotiations to the political branches. In contrast, advocacy groups warn that the administration’s approach could set a precedent for executive overreach, undermining Congress’s power of the purse and threatening vital humanitarian programs around the world.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s own stance remains uncertain. In its March split decision, four justices—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—expressed sympathy for the administration’s arguments. Alito, in a dissent, wrote that he was “stunned with his colleagues’ unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”
With the September 30 deadline looming, the stakes could hardly be higher. If the Supreme Court fails to act before then, the administration may be forced to spend billions on foreign aid—funds that Trump insists are misaligned with his foreign policy vision. If the court sides with the administration, urgent health and development programs could face catastrophic funding gaps, with millions of lives in the balance.
As both sides await the Supreme Court’s next move, the outcome of this legal standoff will not only shape the fate of U.S. foreign aid but also test the boundaries of presidential power and congressional authority for years to come.
