January 19, 2026
AVAC’s ‘One Year Later’ series reflects on the tumultuous events of the past 365 days across five global health issues. Our first piece is below. View the full series here.
Nearly one year ago, the new US Presidential Administration issued a deeply cruel executive order: on January 20, 2025, they froze nearly all foreign assistance, halting billions of dollars in already-approved funding under the bad-faith claim of a “90-day review”. What followed was not a brief pause, but a drawn-out, chaotic disruption that stopped life-saving work across the globe, shutting down valuable organizations, and harming lives, health, and livelihoods.
The subsequent 12 months have laid bare the risks when executive power overrides Congressional authority in ways that threaten lives at home and abroad and erode the longstanding US role as a reliable partner in global development. When the freeze first happened, Lauren Bateman from the Public Citizen Litigation Group said, “The Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance funding is dangerous and illegal. When programs are abruptly shuttered, the impacts are felt throughout the world—with the most vulnerable people bearing the deadliest impact.”
Medicines sat in warehouses while clinics closed. Organizations across continents suspended HIV prevention services and were unable to meet community needs as critical contracts and grants were terminated or left in limbo without planning or justification. Research was halted, undermining years of trust-building and data-gathering.
The freeze forced AVAC to stop CASPR, a coalition of African civil society organizations that supports research on HIV prevention and provides resources for local communities, including medical research trial participants, journalists, and policy makers.
In response to the freeze, AVAC and the JOURNALISM DEVELOPMENT NETWORK sued the President, the State Department, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and others, seeking emergency relief. A day later, an additional case was brought against the federal government by Global Health Council and partners and was assigned to the same District Court judge.
One year later, these cases—like many other lawsuits filed against the many unjust and unconstitutional acts of this administration—have become the symbol of something much larger: whether the executive branch can ignore Congressional power of the purse and dismantle decades of bipartisan foreign policy with the stroke of a pen and whether the courts or Congress will step in to stop it.
An early ruling in AVAC’s case successfully unlocked nearly $2 billion in US government payments for work already completed. The judge’s ruling affirmed Congress’ power of the purse and that the executive branch cannot refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated. But over the course of 2025, the administration filed appeals and sought so-called “emergency relief”.
A partial stay allowed the government to withhold funds while they ran down the clock on the 2025 fiscal year. While they stalled, billions of already-appropriated dollars in foreign assistance expired without being spent, eliminating interventions that would have made America and the world stronger, safer, healthier and more prosperous. As AVAC Executive Director Mitchell Warren said in NPR, “Time and again, this administration has shown their disdain for foreign assistance and a disregard for people’s lives in the United States and around the world. More broadly, this decision, which we will appeal to the extent possible, further erodes Congress’s role and responsibility as an equal branch of government, and the majority opinion makes the court complicit.”
In November 2025, the parties filed a joint statement to the District Court to put the case in abeyance while awaiting separate Court decisions that could inform it. As a result, AVAC’s case remains active in 2026, but lawsuits will never bring back everything that was taken away. As Warren said, “it takes time to build up these programs and relationships … it will take more time to re-build, no matter who funds these efforts.”
A year ago, the foreign aid freeze was falsely framed as a temporary step as the administration began testing the limits of executive power. Today, the reverberations of their cruel and unconstitutional actions are clearer than ever: disrupted care, weakened institutions and relationships, and ongoing chaos and constitutional conflict.
This moment demands more than concern. It demands public outrage, Congressional oversight and legislative safeguards. If lawmakers do not step in to do more, this administration will continue to roll over Congressional decision-making. We cannot accept this as the new normal—and must insist that the rule of law, including the lives it protects, still matters.