A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to pay at least a portion of the nearly $2 billion in owed foreign aid for previously completed projects by 6 p.m. Monday, an expeditious ruling that comes just one day after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s request to continue its freeze.
The decision from U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali came after a more than four-hour court hearing Thursday, where he grilled both parties on their proposed repayment plans, and a timeframe for the government to comply with the $1.9 billion in owed foreign aid that has been completed.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Ali ordered the government to pay at least a portion of the $1.9 billion by Monday at 6 p.m.
“I think it’s reasonable to get the plaintiffs’ invoices paid by 6 p.m. on Monday,” said Judge Ali. “What I’ll order today is the first concrete step that plaintiffs have their invoices paid … [and] work completed prior to Feb. 13 to be paid by 6 p.m. on Monday, March 10th.”
SCOTUS RULES ON NEARLY $2 BILLION IN FROZEN USAID PAYMENTS
Susan Schorr, of DC, holds an anti-Elon Musk sign and an American flag in protest in front of the headquarters for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on February 3, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
That order previously set a deadline of Feb. 26 at 11:59 p.m. for the Trump administration to pay its outstanding debt to foreign aid groups.
The Justice Department had argued that the timeline was “impossible” to comply with— a notion seemingly rejected by Judge Ali during Thursday’s hearing.
At one point, an attorney for the Justice Department asked for more time to get the payments out, citing the potential difficulty of getting financial transactions approved or completed over the weekend. In response, Judge Ali noted that the government had successfully paid out more than $70 million in the hours between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, noting that this “ought to be possible” as well.
Judge Ali stressed during the Thursday hearing that the Feb. 26 deadline he previously set for the government to pay the $1.9 billion in foreign aid had passed.
Now, he said, the job given to him by the Supreme Court is to clarify the government’s role in repayment— instructions, he noted, that he tends to take “very seriously.”
Local residents carry sacks of food distributed by USAID in northern Kenya in 2022. Trump has frozen most foreign aid since taking office, prompting a flurry of court challenges and efforts to recoup funds for completed projects. (AP/Desmond Tiro)
The 5-4 Supreme Court decision one day earlier remanded the case back to the D.C. federal court, and Judge Ali , o hash out the specifics of what must be paid, and when. Judge Ali moved quickly following the high court’s decision, ordering both parties back to court Thursday to weigh plausible repayment schedules.
But the early hours of Thursday’s hearing focused more on the government’s role and review of all foreign aid contractors and grants, which Trump administration lawyers told Judge Ali they had already completed and made final decisions for.
Stephen Wirth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, objected to the administration’s “breakneck” review of the contracts and grants, arguing that they “had one objective— to terminate as many contracts as possible.”
Lawyers were also pressed over whether the Trump administration can legally move to terminate projects whose funds are allocated and appropriated by Congress.
This could eventually kick the issue back up to the Supreme Court.
SCOTUS RULES ON NEARLY $2 BILLION IN FROZEN USAID PAYMENTS
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor attend the 60th inaugural ceremony on January 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. (Ricky Carioti /The Washington Post via Getty Images)
At issue in the case was how quickly the Trump administration needed to pay the nearly $2 billion owed to aid groups and contractors for completed projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at a time when the administration has issued a blanket freeze on all foreign spending in the name of government “efficiency” and eliminating waste.
President Donald Trump has stated plans to cut some 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts and to slash an additional $60 billion in foreign aid spending.
In a Supreme Court filing, acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris said that while the plaintiffs’ claims were likely “legitimate,” the time Judge Ali gave them to pay the outstanding invoices was “not logistically or technically feasible.”
But plaintiffs disagreed: Rather, they said, the Trump administration had moved too quickly to dismantle the systems required to send payments to foreign aid groups in the first place — and to purge the many USAID staffers who could have facilitated a smoother, faster repayment process.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Plaintiffs have argued that the lower court judge had ordered the Trump administration to begin making the owed foreign aid payments more than two weeks ago — a deadline they said the government simply failed to meet, or to even take steps to meet — indicating that the administration had no plans to make good on fulfilling that request.