A federal judge in the US on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore funding to hundreds of foreign aid contractors who reported devastating impacts from President Donald Trump’s 90-day blanket freeze.<\/p>\n
Washington, D.C.-based US District Judge Amir Ali, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, stated that the Trump administration failed to consider the extraordinary harm caused by the sweeping freeze on foreign aid.<\/p>\n
“At least to date, Defendants have not offered any explanation as to why the sweeping suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which sent a shockwave and upended the trust interests for thousands of deals with businesses, non-profits and organizations across the country, was a rational precursor to a review of programs,” Ali wrote.<\/p>\n
The judge suggested that, without a temporary injunction, the scale of the “enormous harm” already occurring would “almost certainly” increase.<\/p>\n
Ali prohibited senior State Department and budget aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, from enforcing any contract cancellation or stop-work orders issued after Trump’s inauguration, at least while the litigation is pending.<\/p>\n
The ruling effectively suspends a key element of one of Trump’s first-day executive orders, which mandated a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.<\/p>\n
The judge concluded that the Trump administration acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by abruptly cutting off all foreign aid without considering the consequences for businesses that had been granted this assistance before Trump’s inauguration.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for contractors described the extensive damage and disruption caused by Trump’s proposal to freeze and cancel thousands of ongoing contracts with entities funded with USAID foreign assistance funds. Their claims were supported by a list of over 200 foreign aid contracts canceled this week alone, submitted by the administration at the judge’s order.<\/p>\n
“Businesses are closing, employees are being laid off… food is rotting, medicines are expiring,” lawyer Stephen Wirth said during Ali’s 90-minute hearing on Wednesday, conducted by conference call due to courthouse closure from snow.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for contract and grant recipients emphasized that not only foreign entities are suffering, but also businesses and organizations working with overseas partners across the US have laid off or furloughed almost all their staff. Many of them will not survive the 90-day freeze, the lawyers stated.<\/p>\n
“Stopping billions of dollars in government spending, condemning numerous foreign aid partners, large and small, to oblivion, shutting them down so that they go out of business, is of sufficient political, social and economic significance to require explicit authorization by Congress,” another lawyer for the groups said.<\/p>\n
Ali acknowledged that the harm caused by the freeze, combined with persuasive arguments that the freeze could violate laws against government officials making “arbitrary and capricious” decisions, justified the order to lift the freeze while the case was pending.<\/p>\n
In arguments on Wednesday, the Justice Department presented an unusually broad view of executive authority. Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton argued that because the actions were taken at presidential direction, the groups lacked authority to challenge the actions of USAID and the State Department under the Administrative Procedure Act<\/em>, which allows courts to block “arbitrary and capricious” actions by federal agencies.<\/p>\n “We have no agency action because the agency is implementing an executive order. This is an extremely destructive proposal… Interfering with USAID in this way would place USAID in receivership before a federal court… This policy is taking place against the backdrop of the President’s exercise of his Article II authority to set US foreign policy,” Hamilton argued.<\/p>\n Last week, Trump-appointed US District Judge Carl Nichols blocked the administration from suddenly placing thousands of employees on administrative leave and cutting off their access to government systems. On Thursday, Nichols extended this block for another week.<\/p>\n Ali also became the third judge to immediately block Trump’s efforts to unilaterally freeze a wide swath of government spending.<\/p>\n US District Judge John McConnell, appointed by President Barack Obama and sitting in Rhode Island, compelled the administration to lift a general freeze on domestic federal programs.<\/p>\n Another Washington D.C. judge appointed by Biden, Loren AliKhan, also blocked Trump’s decision to freeze local spending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal judge in the US on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore funding to hundreds of foreign aid contractors who reported devastating impacts from President Donald Trump’s 90-day blanket freeze. Washington, D.C.-based US District Judge Amir Ali, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, stated that the Trump administration failed to consider the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[6618,6617,6625,6615,6622,6626,6627,5615,5770,6614,6621,503,6623,6620,3583,6624,6616,3874,1644,5875,6619],"class_list":["post-7851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","tag-administrative-procedure-act","tag-arbitrary-and-capricious","tag-article-ii-authority","tag-contract-terminations","tag-contractor-layoffs","tag-court-ruling","tag-domestic-federal-programs","tag-executive-order","tag-federal-judge","tag-foreign-aid-freeze","tag-government-spending-freeze","tag-headline","tag-judge-amir-ali","tag-legal-challenge","tag-marco-rubio","tag-russell-vought","tag-temporary-injunction","tag-trump-administration","tag-us-foreign-policy","tag-usaid","tag-usaid-funding"],"yoast_head":"\n