US appeals court says Trump administration can cut billions in foreign aid

The federal government does not have to continue making foreign aid payments, a US appeals court has ruled in a major victory for President Donald Trump.

The ruling reverses a lower court judgment that said the Trump administration had to restore billions of dollars in foreign aid that had already been approved by Congress.

On his first day back at the White House in January, Trump imposed a 90-day pause on all foreign assistance. International aid groups who relied heavily on government grants sued to challenge Trump’s order.

Among the funding cuts are nearly $4 billion (£2.95b) for global health programmes through September.

More than $6 billion for HIV and AIDS programmes, which Congress had approved through 2028, can be axed, as well, under the decision.

Two out of the three judges on the appeals court panel agreed the plaintiffs in the case, the aid groups, did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, and so the funding cuts could continue.

The international aid groups sued the administration in February. In March a district judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s funding freeze, saying it was done unlawfully because the funds were allocated by Congress.

Since he returned to office, Trump has slashed foreign aid, largely shuttering US Agency for International Development (USAID), the main foreign aid agency, because he found its spending “wasteful”.

More than 80% of all the agency’s programmes were cancelled as of March, and on 1 July the remainder were taken over by the State Department as USAID officially closed its doors.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama condemned shutting down the agency and humanitarian organisations around the world have criticised Trump’s funding cuts as both drastic and deadly.

They could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a warning published by researchers in the highly esteemed Lancet medical journal earlier this year.