A US federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down US aid and development work globally.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down US aid and development work worldwide.
The sudden shutdown has resulted in sweeping damage to non-profits and other organizations that help carry out crucial US assistance internationally, US District Judge Amir Ali said while issuing the temporary order on Thursday.
The freeze has shut down almost all of the thousands of US-funded aid and development programmes globally, USAID workers and humanitarian groups say.
The court ruling is the second major setback for the Trump administration in its dismantling of the six-decade-old US Agency for International Development (USAID).
US President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), say the agency is out of line with their agenda.
The decision by the US district court in Washington is the first to target what aid groups have described as a sudden and absolute cutoff of USAID funds for programmes abroad.
Contractors, farmers and suppliers in the US and around the world have been left without hundreds of millions of dollars in pay for work already done, and have been forced to carry out wide-scale layoffs and furloughs as a result.
