By Brendan Pierson
U.S. foreign aid organizations suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its freeze of nearly all foreign aid spending said on Friday that they are owed more than $671 million for past work that a court has ordered be paid by a Monday deadline.
Foreign aid contractors involved in the lawsuit said in a filing in Washington, D.C., federal court that they have outstanding invoices totaling about $420 million, and requests for drawdowns on letters of credit for about $250 million, for past work done for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department.
The plaintiffs include two contractor associations – the Global Health Council and the Small Business Association for International Companies – and six individual contractors including development firm Chemonics International and the American Bar Association.
In a related case, non-profit grant recipients AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Journalism Development Network said they are owed about $400,000 and $1.25 million, respectively.
The administration has repeatedly resisted court orders to release funds over the course of the lawsuit, and in a Thursday court filing said it could take up to 10 days to pay the plaintiffs, some of which have said they will be forced to shut down if not paid immediately.
However, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington said at a hearing on Thursday that he believed payments already made showed that the deadline was feasible.
Trump, a Republican, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid payments in his first day in office, throwing U.S. humanitarian programs worldwide into chaos. In the following weeks, USAID was gutted under the oversight of Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk, with most of its employees placed on leave or fired and its programs abroad frozen.
Ali imposed the deadline of 6:00 p.m. (2300 GMT) this coming Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block an earlier order by Ali setting a February 26 deadline for releasing close to $2 billion for past work.
The new deadline applies only to the portion of that money owed to the organizations that are part of the lawsuit. Ali said at Thursday’s hearing that he would issue an order later about when the government must pay out the rest of the money.
Ali, who was appointed by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, is also considering the plaintiffs’ request to reverse the government’s decision last month permanently canceling most of its foreign aid contracts going forward.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Daniel Wallis)
