A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump's administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down U.S. humanitarian aid and development work around the world, and he has set a five-day deadline for the administration to prove it's complying.
The judge's ruling late Thursday cited the financial devastation that the near-overnight cutoff of payments has caused suppliers and nonprofits that carry out much of U.S. aid overseas.
The ruling was the first to challenge the Republican administration's funding freeze. It comes amid a growing number of lawsuits by government employees' groups, aid groups and government suppliers asking courts to roll back the administration's fast-paced dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and U.S. foreign assistance overall.
Trump and his aide Elon Musk say the 6-decade-old aid agency and much of foreign assistance overall is out of line with the Republican president's agenda.
Administration officials “have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shockwave and upended” contracts with thousands of nonprofit groups, businesses and others, “was a rational precursor to reviewing programs,” Judge Amir H. Ali said in his ruling.
Contractors, farmers and suppliers in the U.S. and around the world say the Trump administration's funding freeze has stiffed them on hundreds of millions of dollars in pay for work already done, has forced them to lay off staff and is rapidly putting many near the point of financial collapse.
Farmers and other suppliers and contractors describe fortunes in undelivered food aid rotting in ports and other undelivered aid at risk of theft.
The judge ordered the administration to notify every organization with an existing foreign-aid contract with the federal government of his temporary stay. He set a Tuesday deadline for the administration to show it had done so and was otherwise complying with the order.
There was no immediate public response from the Trump administration.
The judge issued the temporary order in the U.S. in a lawsuit brought by two organizations, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council, representing health organizations receiving U.S. funds for work abroad.
In his order, the judge noted that the Trump administration argued it had to shut down funding for the thousands of USAID aid programs abroad to conduct a thorough review of each program and whether it should be eliminated.
However, lawyers for the administration had failed to show they had a “rational reason for disregarding ... the countless small and large businesses that would have to shutter programs or shutter their businesses altogether,” the judge added.
The ruling also bars Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump officials from enforcing stop-work orders that the Trump administration and Musk have sent to the companies and organizations carrying out foreign aid orders.
The judge also rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it was buffering the impact of the funding freeze, offering waivers to allow funding to keep flowing to some aid partners. He cited testimony that no such waiver system yet existed and that the online payment system at USAID no longer functioned.
In a separate ruling in another lawsuit Thursday, a judge said his temporary block on a Trump administration order that would pull all but a fraction of USAID staffers off the job worldwide would stay in place at least another week.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols closely questioned the government about how it could keep aid staffers abroad safe on leave despite the administration's dismantling of USAID. When a Justice Department attorney could not provide detailed plans, the judge asked him to file court documents after the hearing.
USAID staffers who until recently were posted in Congo had filed affidavits for the lawsuit describing the aid agency all but abandoning them when looting and political violence exploded in Congo’s capital last month, leaving them to evacuate with their families.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
26 Comments
TaiwanIsNotChina
Like any untrained dog, the administration has to be kept on a short leash.
Yrral
When you lie down with a dog,you are bound to come up with MAGA fleas
Yrral
It a matter ,who are willing to go to
jail for Trump
Yrral
Musk should be the center of Contempt by the court
HopeSpringsEternal
SCOTUS will settle this matter shortly, the Executive Branch management of all Federal Agencies will include the power to curtail waste, fraud and abuse.
USAID, corrupt tool of Democrat Party to proliferate their agenda and enrich themselves. Ditto many other "Deep State' agencies where bureaucrats in charge somehow often rich far beyond their means/salaries... audits coming!
patkim
If the funding is kept frozen, and aid in the form of medicine, food, and clean water to poor countries will evaporate. Then, the U.S.'s standing in the world and it's soft power will vanish as well. No more help from any allies or friends.
Tokyo Guy
I hope Judge Ali has good security. The President and/or Trump will be likely to try and doxx him and send their goons over with pitchforks.
Tokyo Guy
If the funding is kept frozen, and aid in the form of medicine, food, and clean water to poor countries will evaporate. Then, the U.S.'s standing in the world and it's soft power will vanish as well. No more help from any allies or friends.
The US doesn't want any allies or friends anymore, outside of Russia. They're clearly aiming to go it alone.
bass4funk
No, that leash will tear, it won’t stop them, just slow down the inevitable.
iknowall
Then, the U.S.'s standing in the world and it's soft power will vanish as well. No more help from any allies or friends.
Won't happen.
But if it does, and those countries turn their back on the US because they aren't receiving, money then great. Cut loose the freeloaders.
They never were true allies then.
bass4funk
These so called friends (leeches) will kiss up because in the end, they depend on the U.S. for safety, hardware, technology, food etc. they will never turn their backs entirely on the U.S., they know it no matter how tough they talk.
patkim
And Russia is such a great ally? Why then do presidents have to continually have to make one-sided deals with Russia to release wrongfully-kept prisoners? (BTW, people should just stop going to Russia, and at least not bring any kind of drugs there, in the future. Maybe, you won't get jailed.) It's always with Russia or North Korea, that these prisoner swaps have to be done.
bass4funk
No one said that they’re an ally, they are an adversary with the largest nuke supply in the world, it would help to have a mutual understanding coexistence with them
True. I wouldn’t go for sure. Just like, I would never go to China.
True, but again, like them or hate them, we can’t ignore these nations, we just can’t, even if we find them repulsive.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Congress says no:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974#Impoundment
TaiwanIsNotChina
What do you think you will spend the 0.6% of the budget on? Oh I know, 16% on tax cuts.
TaiwanIsNotChina
The patriot knows that some countries have to be bought for national security. Then there are those we just try to keep from collapsing and flooding our borders or brewing new diseases.
Blacklabel
0.6% is the large scale social deception number made up by the media to act like it’s really nothing.
So 0.6% of what total amount?
plasticmonkey
Maybe our MAGA friends can explain.
plasticmonkey
We absolutely must insult and bully our allies. While praising and appeasing our real enemies.
Half a billion dollars worth of food left to rot. Money that was allocated by Congress.
Underworld
bass4funk
And Russia is such a great ally?
Sure. And we should condemn Putin and Russia and make them a pariah.
lincolnman
Thank goodness for fair, honest judges doing their best to protect our democracy from Trump The Tyrant and his band of far-right fascists...
bass4funk
Under the United States Constitution, Article III, Section 1, federal court judges, including district court judges, "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." They can be impeached. SpeakerJohnson, it's up to the House of Representatives. Let’s see where this will go. They are trying to get Trump to ignore a court order so they can impeach him. They don't know the traps are set to gather evidence. Whatever they do with the money from here on forward will become serious evidence to reclaim their assets. He’s not falling for it, let the process work itself out, let the Dems file all the lawsuits and then have the SC give the final word and rule in the President’s favor and then stop them once and for all so the findings and cost savings can continue.
patkim
Great point! Part of the purpose of having good relationships with other countries is to share information, such as a possible outbreak of a disease. Also, the CIA and FBI routinely gets intel from other countries, and having a good relationship with them makes that possible. Breaking off friendships, gutting intelligence agencies, and laying off tons of federal workers will weaken America's ability to fight terrorism.
patkim
Trump wants to cut healthcare, social services, education, energy, and infrastructure spending, but increase defense and the Department of Homeland (which is responsible for his deportation of immigrants). And this will make American lives better?
It's also crazy to think that back during the Obama presidency, Michelle Obama put forth a system to provide healthier options for school lunches, then Trump came in and got rid of that, and now, he and RFK want to make school lunches healthy again and say it like it was his marvelous idea?
bass4funk
The unnecessary pork, absolutely, the programs themselves, NO.
Absolutely, and those cuts will allow us to do just that.
Yes
Because kids weren’t eating them
Yes
They want people to aware and to get the crap out of our food. We have over 10,000 chemicals in our food, you should be able to eat what you want, but you have every right to know what chemicals are in there and whether you want to consume them or not.
bass4funk
Yes
Not really, the most important thing is to get the rot out and second, they will always keep the friendship intact when regards to intelligence, because their security interests align with ours as well