The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the administration to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid payments that President Trump moved to cancel in a rare “pocket rescission” last month.
In a one-page order, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to block a federal judge’s Sept. 3 ruling that required $11.5 billion in funds previously appropriated by Congress to be dispersed.
Roberts partially stayed Washington, DC-based District Judge Amir Ali’s order for foreign aid spending “subject to the President’s August 28, 2025 recission [sic] proposal currently pending before Congress.”
Trump notified House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last month of his request to cancel $3.2 billion in United States Agency for International Development (USAID) development assistance, $322 million from the USAID-State Department Democracy Fund, $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations, $393 million in State Department contributions to peacekeeping activities and $445 million in separately budgeted peacekeeping aid.
The request, known as a pocket rescission, was presented to Congress so late in the fiscal year – which ends Sept. 30 – that it would take effect regardless of whether lawmakers approve.
The procedural move has not been used by a president in nearly 50 years.
The nearly $5 billion in funds had been bound for several nonprofit organizations and foreign governments.
Ali, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled last week that Congress would have to approve the rescission proposal for the Trump administration to withhold the money.
“To date, Congress has not responded to the President’s rescission proposal by rescinding the funds,” Ali wrote. “And the [Impoundment Control Act] is explicit that it is congressional action — not the President’s transmission of a special message — that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”
Nonprofit groups suing the Trump administration over the funding freeze argued that it violated federal law and threatened to shutter urgent, lifesaving programs abroad.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer pleaded with the high court that Ali’s ruling was “an unlawful injunction that precipitates an unnecessary emergency and needless interbranch conflict.”
Roberts asked the nonprofits behind the lawsuit, led by Global Health Council, to file a response by Friday as the high court reviews the case.
