Donald Trump has moved to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development, which he has, assertedly, transferred to the command of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump's US AID freeze rejected - Democracy Docket
A federal judge ruled Monday that President Donald Trump’s extensive freeze to foreign aid spending through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) usurped Congress’s constitutional authority to decide how money can be spent by the government.
District Court Judge Amir Ali, appointed by President Joe Biden, barred the Trump administration from impounding congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds and to pay USAID bills for existing contracts and grants through Feb. 13.
Ali criticized the defendants “unbridled view” of executive power, saying it “flouts multiple statutes whose constitutionality is not in question” and the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
AIDS Vaccine Advocacy v. U.S. Department of State - Memorandum Opinon and Order 2/11/2025
The provision and administration of foreign aid has been a joint enterprise between our two political branches. That partnership is built not out of convenience, but of constitutional necessity. It reflects Congress and the Executive’s “firmly established,” shared constitutional responsibilities over foreign policy, Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U.S. 1, 62 (2015) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting), and it reflects the division of authorities dictated by the Constitution as it relates to the appropriation of funds and executing on those appropriations. Congress, exercising its exclusive Article I power of the purse, appropriates funds to be spent toward specific foreign policy aims. The President, exercising a more general Article II power, decides how to spend those funds in faithful execution of the law. And so foreign aid has proceeded over the years.
This case involves a departure from that firmly established constitutional partnership. Here, the Executive has unilaterally deemed that funds Congress appropriated for foreign aid will not be spent. The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place. In advancing this position, Defendants offer an unbridled view of Executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected—a view that flouts multiple statutes whose constitutionality is not in question, as well as the standards of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). Asserting this “vast and generally unreviewable” Executive power and diminution of Congressional power, Defendants do not cite any provision of Article I or Article II of the Constitution. See generally Glob. Health, ECF No. 34.
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