Appeals court allows Trump to continue ending foreign aid grants
Source: CNN Politics
PUBLISHED Aug 13, 2025, 12:10 PM ET
Only the legislative branch can sue a presidential administration for making changes to congressionally approved budgets, the federal appeals court in DC ruled after looking at President Donald Trump’s administration ending planned grants for foreign aid.
The decision empowers the Trump administration to refuse to spend budgeted money. And it will make it much harder for outside entities that don’t already have contracts with the federal government to challenge the president’s decisions, even in spite of Congress’ power of the purse. The decision allows Trump to continue with his wind-down of foreign aid grants.
The US DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel, voting 2-1, interpreted the law around the Impoundment Control Act, which regulates the action of a president to delay or withhold funding that has been already appropriated by Congress in the federal budget.
In the case, grant recipients sued over access to almost $4 billion for global health and more than $6 billion for HIV/AIDS programs that were appropriated by Congress to be disbursed by the State Department and the now-essentially shuttered agency USAID.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/13/politics/appeals-court-foreign-aid-refusal-to-spend-money-ruling
Link to RULING (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26049579-ruling-in-usaid-impoundment-case/
Link to RULING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26049579/ruling-in-usaid-impoundment-case.pdf
Poppy Bush judge, 45 judge, and Biden judge.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Congress appropriates funds and the appropriation is approved by a president, enacting that into law… but if a president (or the next one) then refuses to spend those funds as legislated and approved, the only recourse is to have the legislature pass additional legislation to counter the president’s refusal to allow the expenditure? Which of course would be subject to presidential veto.
The court has just made up a new rule that says a president has no obligation to honor any unspent money approved during any previous administration’s term. That’s what it seems to me, anyway.
