Egypt Daily News – A US judge has suspended President Donald Trump’s decision, issued at the end of last January, to freeze US foreign aid funds for 90 days as part of a broad review of these programs, according to AFP.
Judge Amir Ali prohibited all US administration agencies from “suspending, halting, or obstructing the release of international humanitarian aid funds linked to contracts, grants, cooperation agreements, and loans that were in effect as of January 19, 2025,” on the eve of the presidential decree’s implementation.
Trump halted US foreign aid after taking office on January 20, leading to the suspension of programs related to food, health, and other sectors worth billions of dollars.
The spending freeze is expected to last for 90 days pending reviews on the efficiency of these programs and their alignment with Trump’s foreign policy.
Nonprofit organizations considered Trump’s directive and the subsequent memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which halted funding commitments for foreign aid programs, to be an illegal and unconstitutional exercise of executive power. They called for orders to suspend its implementation, warning that this move had caused a “funding and management chaos” in foreign aid programs.
They also pointed out that more than 230 grants and contracts of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had been canceled or suspended since the executive order took effect in several countries around the world.
