A judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to place 2,200 employees of the US Agency for International Development on paid leave, hours before it was due to happen.
Judge Carl Nichols said he would issue a “very limited” temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by unions, challenging the plan to place thousands of staff on leave from midnight on Friday.
USAID, which is the US government’s main overseas development arm, employs about 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas.
The ruling came as officials removed and covered USAID signs at the organisation’s headquarters in Washington DC. Under the plan by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, some 611 employees would have been kept working at the agency.
Trump has argued that USAID is not a valuable use of taxpayer money. It is one of many federal agencies the Trump administration is targeting as it works to slash federal spending in the US.
The Republican campaigned on overhauling the government and formed an advisory body named the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – led by Musk – to slash the budget.
Friday’s ruling by Judge Nichols came in response to an emergency petition by the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees – two unions representing employees of the agency.
Judge Nichols, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, said the written order would be issued later and go into more detail.
During the hearing, he did not seem likely to grant other requests from the unions as part of the lawsuit to restore grants and contracts or reopen USAID buildings.
The legal action argued that the president was violating the US Constitution and federal law by attempting to dismantle the agency.
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” it said.
“And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”
On Thursday, the Trump administration sent notice to employees at USAID that it planned to keep on 611 essential employees. About 500 had already been placed on leave.
A justice department official, Brett Shumate, told the judge that Trump “has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID”.
Hours after Trump took office on 20 January, he signed an executive order halting all foreign assistance until such funds were vetted and aligned with his “America First” policy.
That led to a stop work order at USAID, which has in turn upended the global aid system as hundreds of programmes have been frozen in countries around the world.
On Friday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY.
“THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!”
The US is by far the biggest single provider of humanitarian aid around the world. It has bases in more than 60 countries and works in dozens of others, with much of its work carried out by its contractors.
According to government data, the US spent $68bn (£55bn) on international aid in 2023.
That total is spread across several departments and agencies, but USAID’s budget constitutes more than half of it at around $40bn – that’s about 0.6% of total US annual government spending of $6.75tn.
Former USAID chiefs have criticized the reported cutback plan. One of them, Gayle Smith, stressed to the BBC that the US had always been the fastest to arrive during humanitarian crises around the world.
“When you pull all of that out, you send some very dangerous messages,” Smith said. “The US is signaling that we don’t frankly care whether people live or die and that we’re not a reliable partner.”
Also on Friday, Trump fired the leadership of the Kennedy Center, a cultural and preforming arts Centre in Washington.
He said in a post on social media that he wanted to become the chairman of the board that oversees the Centre.