US asks Supreme Court to take action in USAID funding challenge

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Aug 27, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to quickly step into a legal challenge over billions of dollars in funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign assistance funds.

The emergency application Wednesday argues that administrative action at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has left the government in limbo just ahead of the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

If the justices do not intervene, the Trump administration wrote, it “will effectively force the government to rapidly obligate some $12 billion in foreign-aid funds that would expire September 30 and to continue obligating tens of billions of dollars more — overriding the Executive Branch’s foreign-policy judgments regarding whether to pursue rescissions and thwarting interbranch dialogue.”

The application is the latest in litigation over Donald Trump’s effort to cut foreign aid funds and wind down USAID that dominated the first few weeks of his administration and have already included one trip to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration is appealing a preliminary injunction from a district court judge, which the government said obligates it to make available “the full amount of funds that Congress appropriated for foreign assistance program,” or tens of billions of dollars.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit vacated that injunction, finding in a 2-1 ruling that only the Government Accountability Office — not people impacted by the funding cuts — can file a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s funding freezes under a 1974 law known as the Impoundment Control Act.

But that panel did not issue a mandate for that ruling to go into effect. And the full D.C. Circuit has refused either to put a hold on the district court injunction or issue the mandate for the D.C. Circuit panel ruling.

The application asked for a decision by Tuesday and dipped into a broader fight over who can challenge the president’s decisions to withhold funding passed into law.

The emergency application argues spending disputes should stay between the branches of government, not hashed out in the courts. “Congress and the President have long resolved disagreements through the political process,” the applications states.

The impoundment law, which the Trump administration has argued separately is unconstitutional, was passed in the wake of fights in the Nixon administration over impounding appropriated funds. The law lays out a series of steps for a president to withhold funds and propose rescissions for Congress to pass.

Earlier this summer the administration used the law to propose a $9 billion rescissions package which passed Congress on largely party lines.

The case is Global Health Council et al. v. Donald J. Trump in his official capacity as President of the United States of America, et al.