Judge orders Trump to reinstate foreign aid approved before he took office

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A federal judge ruled that the United States must resume providing some foreign aid after President Donald Trump issued a 90-day pause when he took office.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, late Thursday said that the Trump administration must not suspend or cancel foreign aid that was issued under the previous administration but said it was not "appropriate or necessary" to block the whole executive order.

The ruling came in response to a lawusit filed by a group of nonprofits that had worked on international aid projects to overturn the blanket foreign aid ban.

Ali said the Trump administration failed to provide any "meaningful" reason for the sudden action of laying off thousands of people and shutting down programs over a short period of time.

"At least to date, defendants have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shock wave and upended reliance interests for thousands of agreements with businesses, nonprofits, and organizations around the country, was a rational precursor to reviewing programs," Ali said.

"Absent temporary injunctive relief, thereof, the scale of the enormous harm that has already occurred will almost certainly increase."

USAID doles out billions in foreign aid as a means of "soft" diplomacy. Trump and Elon Musk, the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, charged that most of the money the agency spends has been wasteful.