The News
The US Supreme Court denied a Trump administration request to keep frozen almost $2 billion in foreign aid funding Wednesday after a lower court ordered the money be released.
The order left major questions unanswered, including when the money should be released, and said lower courts should clarify “what obligations the government must fulfil” — enabling the administration to continue challenging the case.
While the ruling was deemed “extremely modest,” CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck wrote, the ruling indicates that the court, despite its conservative bent, will not uniformly support Trump’s program while in office.
The full international fallout from the US pullback on aid remains unclear: Two Nobel Prize-winners wrote in the Financial Times that other rich countries and individuals could, and should, plug the gap, with one group saying it would continue funding anti-HIV efforts regardless of what Washington did.
However, other analysts argued one major withdrawal like that of the US could lead to the entire aid system being threatened.
“USAID is the literal backbone of a vast global network,” a former leader at collapsed US bank Lehman Brothers wrote, comparing the future aid fallout to the 2008 financial crisis. “Millions will suffer and even die due to these abrupt, draconian funding cuts,” he added.