The Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling that the Trump administration must heed a lower court’s order to release frozen foreign aid was a welcome but confusing development for humanitarian and development organizations around the world, as they waited to see if thousands of canceled contracts would be restarted.
For weeks, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal agency chiefly responsible for disbursing foreign aid.
Thousands of nongovernmental groups and companies that once partnered with it have been in limbo since the administration canceled over 90 percent of contracts, neutered the agency’s payments system and reneged on promises to pay for work already completed.
The organizations that brought the lawsuit have insisted that the court’s ruling ought to force the Trump administration to restore all foreign aid funding. But the administration has been adamant that it was within its rights to decimate the agency.
Here’s where things stand, and how this court order is expected to play out.
Why has foreign aid been frozen?
President Trump has argued that some U.S.A.I.D. programs were counter to American interests, too “woke” and too expensive. On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order to pause all foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review of programs to determine whether they aligned with his foreign policy objectives.
The administration has stated in its court filings that the review was “largely completed,” after it announced its decision last week to terminate funding for about 5,800 contracts. Those contracts comprised over 90 percent of U.S.A.I.D.’s remaining caseload. On Wednesday, however, Pete Marocco, the State Department official who has been overseeing the cuts to the agency, told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the review was in its early stages.