Trump officials delay foreign aid Congress ordered

Trump officials – For months, lawmakers have tried to steer how the State Department and the Office of Management and Budget spend foreign aid Trump signed into law. A review of government records found agencies delayed spending, withheld funds for earmarked purposes, and label

The clock has been ticking for global health budgets that Congress spelled out in black-and-white — and inside Washington, the frustration is starting to sound less like politics and more like urgency.

When President Donald Trump asked Congress earlier this year for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and sharply reduce federal spending on food, medicine, and lifesaving work abroad, lawmakers rejected that plan. They wanted USAID to remain. even in a diminished form. and they put their decisions on foreign aid spending into law.

Trump signed the bill. He agreed to the numbers and the reporting requirements. He also accepted Congress’s insistence that money meant for specific lifesaving priorities — including nutrition, HIV-related prevention and treatment, and emergency humanitarian aid — would be spent as directed.

Now, eight months into the fiscal year, Trump administration officials are failing to follow many of those orders, according to a review of government records and interviews with legal experts, current and former government employees, and members of Congress.

Officials have delayed spending on global health. have not issued funds for some projects. and have labeled some humanitarian aid and global health money “unallocated. ” according to the review. In practice, that designation keeps the spending decision inside the Office of Management and Budget, run by Russell Vought. When lawmakers have asked for details, officials often have not responded.

“It is a huge grab of power from the president, taking powers away from Congress,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on administrative and constitutional law.

That line lands with particular force because Congress and the White House have already been fighting over foreign aid since Day 1 of the Trump administration — a clash experts describe as a constitutional crisis over who controls the power of the purse across the three branches of government.

Last year. the administration took an unprecedented step: it gutted USAID by terminating thousands of aid programs and allowing funding to expire without permission from Congress. Lawmakers did little to stop it. The review and experts say many people died after the dismantling. including children. as lifesaving programs for food. medicine. and supplies were stopped.

Even after USAID was left in shambles. Congress made clear it expected foreign aid to continue — at levels close to previous years in some cases. Sen. Brian Schatz. D-Hawaii. the ranking member of the Senate committee with oversight of foreign aid funds. said the push reflected “broad. bipartisan support for America showing up in the world. helping people and working with our allies and partners on shared challenges.” Schatz added that it is “not just because it’s the right thing to do. but because it directly benefits us.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s chair, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The administration’s response has been to move in ways that critics say blunt Congress’s ability to enforce its own spending directives.

The Office of Management and Budget was instrumental in blocking spending of aid money last year. and experts say its approach this year is similar in structure even if it looks different on paper. This year. it has labeled both humanitarian aid and global health money as “unallocated. ” meaning OMB must approve how it is spent.

Legal scholars interviewed for the review argue that moves like these. paired with delays from the State Department. likely violate the law. Bobby Kogan. an OMB adviser under former President Joe Biden currently at the Center for American Progress. said foreign aid is one of the clearest examples of why Congress made it illegal for administrations and agencies to slow-walk funds. “If you spend no money for a year and all the clinics close, then those people die,” he said.

The State Department, meanwhile, is not simply administering the money Congress earmarked. It is also working on a smaller staff base after USAID was dismantled. The review describes the agency’s remnants being transferred to the State Department after nearly all of USAID’s employees were fired and many programs closed last summer.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had promised lifesaving aid would continue, but the State Department began winding down many remaining programs earlier this year.

Staff say they have been working under a severely constricted budget. Dr. Mike Reid. who was chief scientific officer of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) until he left earlier this year over concerns about how the program is being run. said officials gave staff just half of the available money for PEPFAR.

Congress earmarked about $4.6 billion out of the $9.4 billion Trump signed into law earlier this year for global health spending for the State Department. But staff say it’s unclear how much of that they will be allowed to spend.

The bill also explicitly directed the State Department to spend specific pots of money: $524 million for family planning. $165 million for nutrition. and $109 million for neglected tropical diseases. According to a review of government records and two people with knowledge of the department’s activities. State Department officials made little or no effort to spend from those pots.

In response. a State Department spokesperson. who declined to be named. told the review that the department has “continued to obligate and spend every dollar appropriated for global HIV/AIDS programs” and that it is “implement[ing] life-saving care in global health priority areas. including HIV/AIDS. tuberculosis. malaria. and maternal and child health.” The spokesperson said the department has been slowly replacing old carry-over USAID grants with new State Department grants and contracts with “fresh funds. ” “new terms and conditions. ” and better alignment with the new “America First foreign assistance strategy.”.

But program officials and budget watchers point to a broader slowdown.

Global health programming has moved at a much slower rate than in previous years, according to an analysis of federal funding data shared with ProPublica by Aid on the Hill, an advocacy group created by former USAID employees. The State Department disputes that conclusion.

The review says that of more than $9 billion Congress told the Trump administration to spend on global health last year. by the end of March officials had obligated just $190 million — 5% of what was spent on average in that period in the five years before Trump returned to office. The review adds that officials typically would have obligated about half of the money by that point.

Another advocacy organization, Health Security Policy Academy, published a similar analysis last week.

The State Department said it “cannot and will not” verify independent analysis, but disagreed with the figures. The department said it has “approved and implemented spending” for more than $7.5 billion to align with bilateral agreements and disaster response. insisting the numbers are “vastly outdated” or “mistaken. ” while declining to elaborate.

The review describes agreements the State Department is signing with poor countries as a centerpiece of its new foreign aid policy, often involving sending funds directly to those governments. But the specifics of the programs are still being determined, and the funding has not yet flowed.

Inside the administration, Jeremy Lewin is key to that shift. A 29-year-old lawyer who entered government through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and has no prior humanitarian experience. Lewin is in charge of foreign aid. He has said the new strategy will save lives, reform the aid sector, and reduce dependence on U.S. funding.

Since last July. Lewin has been “performing the duties” of undersecretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs — a position that must be approved by Congress. though the administration has yet to nominate him or anyone else to the job. The review says he rarely. if ever. meets with career staff and does not share information about plans even with the people expected to carry them out. Lewin insists he approve even routine payments, which staff say creates a stranglehold on funding and information.

The review also says Trump appointees have failed to answer basic questions from Congress, with letters unanswered and required reports not filed.

At the same time, the administration has leaned more heavily on large international organizations to deliver aid once managed by USAID employees.

Earlier this year. Lewin funneled $3.8 billion to a small arm of the United Nations: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. quadrupling OCHA’s budget. The review notes that Trump has frequently criticized the United Nations as ineffective. But after nearly all of USAID’s staff was fired. the review says the State Department lacks the capacity and expertise to manage so much humanitarian aid on its own.

The agreement with OCHA, reviewed by the review, does not allow the U.S. to independently audit the funds, though the U.N. agreed to run a pilot project for greater internal oversight.

Eri Kaneko, OCHA’s spokesperson, told the review that the agency has worked quickly since December to disburse funds for “the most urgent and life-threatening needs,” and that U.N. entities are “fully committed to the highest standards of accountability and oversight.”

Funding disputes are playing out beyond the United Nations, too. The U.S. has been the largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria since its inception. Lewin announced an expanded partnership with the fund to provide HIV prevention across Africa. But the review says the Trump administration withheld payments pledged under the Biden administration last year. forcing the fund to reduce what it gave to nations.

This year’s spending bill directed the State Department to make good on those pledges by issuing specific instructions to Rubio on what to pay and when, and telling him to make those contributions “in a timely manner.” The review says that hasn’t happened.

A State Department spokesperson told the review that “all current funding obligations have been met.” But a board member for the Global Fund. congressional staff. and Friends of the Global Fight. an organization that advocates for the fund in the U.S. said the administration should contribute another $661 million.

Schatz said, “The State Department is underfunding the Global Fund.” He added that it is “out of compliance with congressional appropriations.” When Schatz asked about the funding during Rubio’s recent testimony to Congress, Rubio said, “I think that will move shortly, very quickly.”

All of this is unfolding against a legal fight about what happens when Congress says to spend — and the executive branch slows down, reroutes, or blocks.

During previous administrations, once Congress passed laws approving federal spending, money flowed through the Office of Management and Budget, which parceled out funds to agencies while helping ensure agencies didn’t spend too quickly or too slowly.

Under Trump, experts say OMB has repeatedly blocked funds approved by Congress from going to agencies using what they describe as legally dubious maneuvers.

Foreign aid has been a focal point. After USAID was razed last year, Vought was made acting administrator and tasked with overseeing the closeout. Eric Ueland, a Vought deputy at OMB, is currently performing those duties.

The review says OMB has labeled more than $500 million in global health money as “unallocated. ” making it impossible for the State Department to spend without OMB approval. It also says OMB labeled most humanitarian aid money this way, but began releasing some of those funds in May. By June 11, the review says, OMB had released all of that money to the State Department.

Several people inside and outside government told the review they fear the administration is withholding the funds because it plans not to spend them at all — warning that last year’s behavior is the model.

In 2025, the administration clawed back some $13 billion in foreign aid that Congress passed into law. The review says some of it was done using a maneuver widely understood by legal experts to be illegal. Vought calls it a “pocket rescission. ” which asks Congress to cancel funds so late in the fiscal year that there isn’t enough time for them to be spent if Congress says no.

The Government Accountability Office said pocket rescissions are illegal. and the review says several constitutional scholars believe the move violates the Impoundment Control Act. That law. passed in 1974 after disputes with President Richard Nixon. restricts the president’s authority to withhold. or impound. funds approved by Congress.

A federal court initially blocked the maneuver as part of ongoing lawsuits related to the dismantling of USAID. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued an emergency ruling split along ideological lines that allowed the clawback to continue without ruling on the merits.

GAO has standing to take legal action on a pocket rescission. Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO’s general counsel, told the review that GAO was continuing to review potential impoundments and monitor ongoing litigation, and that it had not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time.

Career officials and legal experts interviewed for the review say another rescission — legal or not — would erode Congress’s power of the purse.

“If that’s going to be a regular occurrence. then we have a real fundamental threat to the rule of law. ” said Cerin Lindgrensavage. a former Justice Department lawyer who works for Protect Democracy. a nonprofit that fights against authoritarianism. Lindgrensavage said: “Congress has said spend the money, and the president doesn’t want to. The question is, who wins?. Under the law, Congress is supposed to win. Right now, the president is.”.

Budget watchers point to signs that the administration may be planning more withholding. In April. OMB announced to Congress that it was withholding funds earmarked for global health to pay severance fees and other costs tied to the thousands of USAID programs Trump officials terminated last year. OMB officials told lawmakers they were setting aside $19 billion to cover those costs and expected the total would be “substantially” less.

The review says internal documents reviewed by ProPublica show the figure does not include the cost of the lawsuits associated with the closures or the dozens of new hires and other agency operations needed to process them.

Democratic lawmakers reacted sharply. In a letter to Trump officials, senators called the move an “appalling admission of waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars” and demanded that the administration use the $3.2 billion as directed, consistent with the law. They asked for a response by May 8. As of June 16, the review says lawmakers had not received one.

Asked about the funds during the recent Senate hearing, Rubio claimed they were under OMB’s purview. Schatz responded that Rubio had moved all foreign aid under the State Department and wrestled some money away from OMB to respond to an Ebola outbreak. Schatz said it demonstrated that money can be released from closeout funds if officials want to. “Ebola is an urgent priority, but so is malaria, so is TB and so is HIV/AIDS,” Schatz told Rubio.

A State Department spokesperson told the review that “Proposing a rescission is a Presidential authority” and said the department would follow Trump’s direction as to future rescissions. The spokesperson added: “We are currently planning to obligate all appropriated balances, consistent with law.”

In response to detailed questions about the review’s story, OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said, “This is patently false,” adding that “USAID was a weaponized government agency.” She did not respond to a follow-up question asking what was false.

At the center of the dispute is a simple question Congress says it already answered when it passed the spending bill: when lawmakers authorize foreign aid for specific purposes, who decides whether it actually reaches the people it’s meant to help?

For the administration, the answer appears to be that it has room to maneuver — through “unallocated” labels, delays, new contracting approaches, and potentially broader tactics that critics say turn Congress’s directions into something more optional than enforceable.

For lawmakers and the legal scholars watching the spending fight, the concern is not only money left unspent. It is what happens when the routine tools of oversight and compliance stop working — and the power of the purse starts to look less like a constitutional safeguard and more like a bargaining chip.

United States foreign aid USAID Congress Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought State Department global health PEPFAR HIV humanitarian aid Impoundment Control Act pocket rescission Marco Rubio Donald Trump