Roberts Says Trump Can Keep Foreign Aid Frozen

UPDATE Sep 9, 2025 5:52 PM CDT

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily kept in place the Trump administration's decision to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid. The high court order is temporary, though it suggests that the justices will reverse a lower court ruling that withholding the funding was likely illegal, the AP reports. Roberts issued an administrative stay, giving justices more time to review the case, CNN reports. The chief justice acted on the administration's Monday emergency appeal to the top court in the case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. President Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking a disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

Sep 8, 2025 9:24 AM CDT

The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen. The crux of the legal fight is over nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved aid that President Trump last month said he would not spend, reports the AP, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago. Last week, US District Judge Amir Ali ruled that the administration's decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal.

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter on Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch in what's known as a pocket rescission. That is when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of a budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent.

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Ali said Congress would have to approve the rescission proposal for the administration to withhold the money. The law is "explicit that it is congressional action—not the President's transmission of a special message—that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations," he wrote. The administration turned to the high court after a panel of federal appellate judges declined to block Ali's ruling. Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that another $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

• The case has been winding its way through the courts for months. Nonprofit organizations that sued the government have said the funding freeze breaks federal law and has shut down funding for even the most urgent lifesaving programs abroad.