Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay on Tuesday, pausing a lower court order that required the Trump administration to spend $4 billion in foreign aid funds.

The move temporarily halts the enforcement of U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s ruling last week, which directed the administration to obligate the Congressionally-approved funds.

BREAKING: Chief Justice John Roberts and has just REVERSED a lower court order that was attempting to FORCE President Trump to spend $4 BILLION in foreign aid by the end of the month

Trump can now withhold the funds.

The Supreme Court is getting FED UP with activist judges! pic.twitter.com/ocLrCCQ0kX

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 9, 2025

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The pause was granted one day after the Justice Department filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court, asking the justices to intervene following the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to block Judge Ali’s order.

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A three-judge appellate panel had declined to issue a stay while the case proceeds, prompting the administration to turn to the high court.

Roberts set a deadline of 4 p.m. Friday for the plaintiffs, who are seeking to force the administration to spend the funds, to respond to the Justice Department’s petition.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in his filing that Judge Ali’s ruling improperly compels President Donald Trump to release money the administration is seeking to cancel through a process known as a “pocket rescission.”

Under this process, a president can request the rescission of appropriated funds near the end of the fiscal year.

If Congress does not act within the 45-day review period, the funds expire before lawmakers have an opportunity to consider the request.

“While proposed rescissions are pending, Presidents do not spend the funds, for obvious reasons: it would be self-defeating and senseless for the Executive Branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind,” Sauer wrote.

He further argued that Ali’s order would force the administration to act prematurely.

“Yet the new injunction would force the Executive Branch to start obligating those funds at breakneck speed to meet the September 30 deadline, even as Congress is considering the rescission proposal and before its 45 days to do so elapse,” Sauer said.

The groups suing the administration countered in a brief filed Monday that granting an administrative stay would effectively hand the government a victory without full judicial review.

They argued that the harm caused by delaying the spending outweighed the government’s burden of taking steps to prepare to obligate the funds.

“These irreparable harms far outweigh any short-duration burden on the government of taking preparatory steps to obligate funds that Congress mandated spending eighteen months ago,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Roberts’s order does not resolve the case but allows the Court additional time to consider the Justice Department’s emergency application.

The stay could be lifted once the justices decide whether to grant a longer pause while the legal process continues.

The decision on the foreign aid case came just one day after Roberts issued another administrative stay in a separate matter involving the removal of a Federal Trade Commission commissioner.

That case involves a Democrat-appointed official whose dismissal is being challenged in court.

The Supreme Court is weighing whether to allow the removal to take effect immediately or to take up the case before it proceeds further through the lower courts.

For now, the $4 billion in foreign aid remains on hold as both sides await further action from the Supreme Court.

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