The Supreme Court delivered a significant victory to President Trump on Friday, permitting his administration to withhold $4 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid while a constitutional dispute over spending authority continues in lower courts.
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The court’s conservative majority ruled that the president’s flexibility in foreign affairs outweighed “the potential harm” faced by aid recipients, though justices cautioned their decision was temporary and “should not be read as a final determination on the merits.”
Liberal Justices Voice Strong Dissent
The three liberal justices dissented, arguing the case was too consequential for emergency consideration. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that “the stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the executive and Congress” over government spending.
Kagan noted that despite the majority’s interim order, the congressionally appropriated funding would not reach foreign aid groups regardless of how the underlying litigation resolves.
Challenge to Separation of Powers
Two nonprofit organisations, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council, challenged Trump’s freeze as an unconstitutional infringement of Congress’s spending authority. The freeze stemmed from a first-day executive order pausing funding for programmes worldwide to determine whether they were “fully aligned with the foreign policy of the president.”
A Public Citizen Litigation Group lawyer representing the coalition, Nicolas Sansone, said the ruling “further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order” and “will also have a grave humanitarian impact on vulnerable communities throughout the world.”
Administration’s Legal Strategy
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told justices that a lower court order requiring the president to release billions before the month’s end posed “a grave and urgent threat” to the president’s ability to negotiate with Congress without court interference.
The case has reached the Supreme Court three times since Trump returned to the White House. The administration has resumed paying billions in other grants and obligations, but Friday’s order came in response to Federal District Court Judge Amir H. Ali’s September 3 ruling siding with the nonprofit organisations.
Rescission Proposal and Congressional Deadlock
At issue is the administration’s recent proposal to Congress to cancel billions in previously approved funding. The administration argues that if Congress does not act on its “rescission” plan before the fiscal year ends Tuesday, the appropriated funds would automatically expire without being spent.
This is an untested legal effort by the Trump administration to essentially run out the clock on the fiscal year. Republicans could bring the rescission proposal to a vote, but GOP leaders have not signalled intent to do so.
The organisations have cast doubt on the administration’s effort, arguing it failed to follow proper procedures for formally delivering proposed rescissions to the House and Senate as required by a 1974 law.
Intended Uses of Frozen Funds
Lawyers for the organisations told justices the government has been obligated to spend the funds since at least March 2024, when Congress appropriated them. The $4 billion is intended to fund food security programmes, help other countries build trade capacity, and aid torture victims, among other assistance.
Pattern of Emergency Orders
The Supreme Court, with its six-justice conservative majority, has repeatedly granted the president’s emergency requests. While technically interim, these orders have had broad consequences, allowing the administration to remove protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants, fire independent government regulators, and remove transgender troops from the military.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. temporarily paused Judge Ali’s latest ruling on September 9, freezing the funding while the full court considered the case. However, in an earlier March version, the chief justice and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in rejecting Trump’s request to freeze nearly $2 billion while litigation continued.
Legal Reasoning
In its two-paragraph order, the court’s majority credited the administration’s argument that the 1974 Impoundment Control Act prevented the type of lawsuit the foreign aid groups filed to recoup appropriated funds.
In their nine-page dissent, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson argued the law’s text and history did not preclude such lawsuits. They also challenged the administration’s claim that it would suffer harm from paying out funds and engaging in negotiations with international organisations.
“But that is just the price of living under a Constitution that gives Congress the power to make spending decisions through the enactment of appropriations laws,” Kagan wrote, adding that such concerns were “merely a frustration any president must bear.”
Featured image: Carlos Barria/Reuters
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