Through the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency docket, Chief Justice John Roberts granted President Donald Trump another temporary victory, issuing a partial administrative stay of a lower court’s ruling that ordered the government to spend approximately $10.5 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds set to expire at the end of the month.
Six days ago, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali sided with the plaintiffs in Global Health Council v. Trump and AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition v. U.S. Department of State, ruling that the administration’s move to unilaterally cancel approximately $4 billion in funds — bypassing Congress to do so — was likely illegal.
“Defendants have a nondiscretionary duty to carry out the statutory commands in the appropriations acts by obligating the relevant funds. To be clear, no one disputes that Defendants have significant discretion in how they spend the funds at issue, and the Court is not directing Defendants to make payments to any specific recipients,” Ali stated. “But Defendants do not have any discretion as to whether to spend the funds.”
The Government Accountability Office defines a pocket rescission as “when a president asks Congress to rescind (or cancel) funds very close to the end of the fiscal year — so close that the funds expire before they can be used for new obligations.”
On August 28, Trump sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., stating that he would not spend $4.9 billion in foreign aid.
Ali, appointed to Washington, D.C.’s federal district court by President Joe Biden in 2024, wrote that, “[t]o date, Congress has not responded to the President’s rescission proposal by rescinding the funds” and that the Impoundment Control Act “explicitly states that it is congressional action — not the President’s transmission of a special message — that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”
As a result, the judge issued an injunction blocking the funding freeze until Congress acts.
The Trump administration immediately requested “shadow docket” relief from the Supreme Court.
In the government’s application for a partial stay, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer asserted Monday that because Ali had now issued a “unlawful injunction that precipitates an unnecessary emergency and needless interbranch conflict,” SCOTUS needed to step in and put an end to the “brinkmanship.”
“Once again,” said Sauer, “that court is compelling the government to obligate some $10.5 billion in foreign-aid funds that otherwise expire on September 30 — but now with even less time for further review or compliance, with even more deficient legal theories.”
Sauer stated that because the Trump administration had “already planned to obligate $6.5 billion of those funds” by the end of the month, his application for an administrative stay was about the $4 billion Trump sought to unilaterally cut.
“The government had already planned to obligate $6.5 billion of those funds by September 30, so as to that tranche, the injunction is (as of now) merely an unnecessary nuisance,” the Attorney General’s office stated. “As to the remaining $4 billion, however, the injunction raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.”
In conclusion, Sauer claimed Ali “created” an emergency out of thin air.
“The district court, not the government, has created a new emergency with little time left on the clock by issuing a new injunction based on new theories that are even more flawed than their predecessors,” a government spokesperson said. “This Court should reject such brinkmanship, avert further damage to the separation of powers, and stay this injunction as soon as practicable with respect to the funds covered by the President’s rescission proposal.”
On Tuesday, Roberts issued a brief order stating that Ali’s order was “partially stayed” — “for funds that are subject to the President’s August 28, 2025 recission [sic] proposal currently pending before Congress pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court.”
In other words, the funds will be frozen at least until the Supreme Court rules on the Trump administration’s emergency application.
Roberts also directed the Global Health Council and AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition plaintiffs to respond by 4 p.m. on September 12.
In their unsuccessful opposition to a stay, respondents argued that the Trump administration should not be rewarded for causing the “emergency” it complains about.
“[A]lthough the government claims that it faces a ’emergency’ in having to move quickly to obligate funds, that is ‘a circumstance of their own creation,'” according to the document. “USAID and the State Department have been under a duty to obligate these funds since at least March 2024, when Congress enacted the appropriations; they chose not to act sooner.”
