Trump asks the Supreme Court to allow billions of foreign aid reductions

The administration of the American president Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to let him retain more than $ 4 billion (3 billion pounds sterling) in foreign aid.

The administration requests an emergency prescription because it tries to recover funds for foreign assistance programs which have already been allocated by the congress.

A lower court last week said that the Trump administration had a statutory obligation to spend money, and a court of appeal refused to freeze this decision.

The president tried to use a legislative tool rarely used to withdraw funds. Since his return to the White House, Trump has canceled billions of dollars in foreign aid which, according to him, does not correspond to his objectives.

The general request, by John Sauer, said in the file on Monday that the injunction of the lower court “increased a serious and urgent threat to the separation of powers”.

“The president can hardly speak with one voice in foreign affairs or in relations with the congress when the district court obliges the executive power to defend his own objectives,” Sauer wrote.

The Supreme Court could reign at any time.

Last week, judge Amir Ali judged that the US government had to spend the money allocated unless the congress voted to approve the Trump administration.

On August 28, Trump informed the House of Representatives that the administration would not spend billions of foreign aid allocated by congress earlier this year.

These funds include some $ 3 billion for the American Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as money for the State Department, international peacekeeping and the promotion of democracy in other countries.

Trump, a Republican, largely dismantled USAID, the main foreign aid agency because he said that his expenses were waste.

To revoke foreign aid money, he said that he used a so-called pocket recurrence thanks to the detention control law, which gives an American president the power to request the cancellation of funds approved by the congress.

Such an opinion so late during the financial year means that money can remain unassigned because the congress does not have enough time to act on the request.

A group of non -profit organizations and companies that receive money for foreign assistance projects have tabled a legal challenge.

It is the first time in almost half a century that the president has devoted funding unilaterally to recover in this way.

The Trump administration has already said that it planned to spend $ 6.5 billion in additional funds for foreign aid, following aid group prosecution.

This is not the first time that the fight against funding for foreign aid has been found at the Supreme Court.

In March, the judges rejected an offer from the president to keep $ 2 billion in frozen foreign aid while the case has progressed. It was a 5-4 decision.