The US Supreme Court ruled on Friday in favour of US President Donald Trump, granting his administration authority to hold back roughly $4 billion in foreign assistance that Congress had approved for the current fiscal year. The decision strengthens the president’s “America First” policy of cutting back overseas spending.
The justices overturned an earlier directive by Washington District Judge Amir Ali, who had ordered the government to release the funds without delay after aid groups sued over the freeze. At issue is how much discretion a president has to block money that lawmakers have already earmarked for specific purposes, reports agencies.
According to court filings, the administration argued the targeted aid conflicted with American interests, citing Trump’s aim to reduce global assistance and weaken the role of the US Agency for International Development. Congress had allocated the disputed $4 billion for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping, and programs to support democracy abroad. The US government’s 2025 fiscal year ends on September 30.
In his September 3 ruling, Judge Ali found the administration could not refuse to spend money that Congress had appropriated unless lawmakers themselves changed the law. The Justice Department countered at the Supreme Court that Ali’s injunction posed “a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.”
Government attorneys added, “It would be self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind.”
Trump’s budget director Russell Vought contended the president has the authority to delay spending for 45 days after requesting a rescission, a window long enough to exhaust the fiscal year. The White House said such a tactic had not been used since 1977.
Critics of the move described it as historically unprecedented, warning that giving the president this ability “would provide the president unchecked power to rescind funds.”
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had previously let Ali’s order stand in a 2-1 decision on September 5, prompting the administration to seek Supreme Court intervention. The justices temporarily blocked the lower court’s ruling on September 9 while considering the case, ultimately siding with the administration.
Earlier in March, the high court had narrowly rejected, by a 5-4 vote, a similar request by the Trump administration to withhold $2 billion already owed to aid organisations for completed work. Since Trump’s return to office in January, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court has consistently allowed his policies to move forward when challenged in lower courts.
