Judge orders Trump administration to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid funds

# Judge orders Trump administration to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid funds

Event date: 2025-03-11. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid payments, sharply limiting the White House’s effort to freeze money owed under existing contracts.

The evidence packet says US District Judge Amir Ali in Washington ruled that the administration must pay for work that had already been completed, even as he declined a broader request from nonprofit groups and businesses to force the government to restore thousands of canceled contracts and grants. The ruling also rejected the administration’s legal argument on a core constitutional question, with Ali saying the president must spend money approved by Congress.

The case is tied to the administration’s January 20 halt to foreign-aid payments, the first day of Trump’s return to office. According to the packet, the Supreme Court had already rejected an emergency effort to freeze the payments, clearing the way for the lower-court order to stand.

The source also places the ruling inside a wider dismantling of USAID programs. On the same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a six-week review had finished and that thousands of programs were being eliminated. He said some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs would end, while the remainder would be administered more effectively under the State Department.

That broader review does not change the narrow legal result. The judge did not order the administration to restore all foreign-aid work, but he did require payment for services already performed. In practical terms, that means the government can still cancel large parts of the aid architecture while remaining responsible for money it already owes.

The ruling underscores a recurring fight over who controls spending once Congress has appropriated funds. The packet says Ali’s order came after a February 13 ruling that had set a February 26 deadline for restarting aid. When the administration sought Supreme Court intervention, the justices declined to block the deadline in a 5-4 decision.

For aid organizations, the decision offers partial relief but not a full reversal. The money at issue is substantial, but the packet makes clear that the court did not bring back the broader network of grants and contracts that had been cut. That means humanitarian and development groups may still face a much smaller operating environment even after the ruling.

The dispute is therefore both legal and practical: a test of executive power, and a fight over whether completed humanitarian work will be paid for at all.