Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

6. Department of State · Major · Day one

Freeze State Department disbursements, contracts, and hiring on inauguration

Partially done

174 6. Department of State

“Upon inauguration, the Secretary of State should order an immediate freeze on all efforts to implement unratified treaties and international agreements, allocation of resources, foreign assistance disbursements, domestic and international contracts and payments, hiring and recruiting decisions, etc., pending a political appointee-driven review to ensure that such efforts comport with the new Administration’s policies.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The Supreme Court (25A269) stayed the September 3 injunction as to the $4 billion covered by the August 28 rescission message, finding the government had made a sufficient showing that the Impoundment Control Act precludes the grantees' APA suit; the remaining roughly $6.5 billion stayed subject to the injunction and expired or was obligated on September 30. The withholding stood for the funds the administration had targeted.

  2. Blocked

    On remand the district court enjoined the agencies to obligate, by September 30, roughly $10.5 billion of expiring FY2024 foreign-aid appropriations in the categories Congress specified, unless Congress rescinded them — stopping the withholding of the expiring funds, including the $4 billion in the President's August 28 "pocket rescission" message.

  3. Partially done

    The D.C. Circuit vacated the district court's preliminary injunction (reissued as amended 2025-08-28): the grantees had no cause of action to enforce the Impoundment Control Act or the separation of powers, leaving statutory APA claims for remand. By then the 90-day review had ended and the freeze had become program terminations and USAID's closure (#642); the pause as such was over.

  4. Blocked

    In AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition v. State (D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00400) and Global Health Council v. Trump (1:25-cv-00402) Judge Ali issued a temporary restraining order against the blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign-aid funds; on February 25 he ordered payment for work completed before the TRO. The Supreme Court (24A831, 2025-03-05, 5–4) declined to vacate that order, leaving the TRO in force and telling the district court to clarify compliance.

  5. Done

    State announced that Secretary Rubio had "paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and USAID for review" and begun a review of every program against the America First agenda — the Secretary-ordered freeze on disbursements, contracts and payments the Mandate asked for, with hiring already frozen government-wide.

  6. Attempted

    Two inauguration-day instruments: Executive Order 14169 directed a 90-day pause on new obligations and disbursements of foreign development assistance pending a political review of every program, and the government-wide hiring-freeze memorandum stopped civilian hiring including at State. Directed from the White House; the Secretary's order came four days later.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The “unratified treaties and international agreements” clause of the ask was not separately verified; no State instrument freezing treaty implementation was found in the federal records we keep and search, or on state.gov.

  • Dockets (leads; entries not readable without authentication): D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00400 https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69627654/aids-vaccine-advocacy-coalition-v-united-states-department-of-state/ ; D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00402 https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69628254/global-health-council-v-donald-j-trump/ ; D.C. Cir. 25-5097/25-5098 (terminated 2025-08-13) and 25-5317/25-5319 (terminated 2026-02-18, per CourtListener’s bulk data of 2026-06-30 — the disposition of that second appeal was not read and is still an open question). The Supreme Court docket pages carry the order text and are cited directly.

  • The February 26, 2025 district-court opinion on CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10339986/global-health-council-v-donald-j-trump/) is the same document as the ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov PDF cited.

  • The hiring freeze was extended on 2025-04-17 (whitehouse.gov “Extension of Hiring Freeze”) — not cited because the Status did not turn on it. State’s own July 2025 reduction in force (American Foreign Service Association v. Trump) belongs to #642.

  • EO 14332 grant-process sweep (2026-09-29). Executive Order 14332 (2025-08-07) puts every agency’s funding announcements and discretionary awards under senior-appointee review and a test of the President’s priorities. Under the rule we settled on 2026-09-29, it counts only where an ask’s object is review, clearance or priority-alignment of an agency’s awards. This Quote’s object is an inauguration-day freeze pending an appointee-driven review. The order’s standing senior-appointee review came more than six months later, after the freeze had become terminations and litigation, which set this item’s Status. Status unchanged.

Action
restrict
Object
State Department disbursements, contracts, and hiring
ID
470