By John Fritze

(CNN) — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump to freeze $4 billion in foreign aid payments, handing the White House a significant victory in its monthslong quest to claw back spending that was approved by Congress last year.

At issue is $4 billion in foreign aid, including for global health and HIV programs, that was allocated by Congress but that Trump deemed wasteful and has been fighting on two fronts. In addition to defending the aid cuts in federal court, his administration is also seeking to “rescind” the money through Congress.

The court’s decision could effectively give the president a roadmap to cancel more congressionally approved money in the future. And it comes as Congress is barreling toward a deadline Tuesday night to fund the government or risk shuttering federal agencies.

The court’s three liberal justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented from the decision.

In a brief statement explaining its decision, the court said that the Trump administration’s argument that the lower court’s order requiring the money to be spent would affect its “conduct of foreign affairs” appeared to “outweigh the potential harm” faced by the nonprofit groups hoping to compete for that money.

“This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits,” the court wrote in its unsigned order. “The relief granted by the court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief.”

Kagan, writing for the liberals, dismissed that position.

That “is just the price of living under a Constitution that gives Congress the power to make spending decisions through the enactment of appropriations laws,” she wrote.

“If those laws require obligation of the money, and if Congress has not by rescission or other action relieved the executive of that duty, then the execu­tive must comply,” Kagan added. “It cannot be heard to complain, as it does here, that the laws clash with the president’s differing view of ‘American values’ and ‘American interests.’”

Another emergency docket case

Kagan also criticized her colleagues in the majority for granting the outcome the administration sought on the emergency docket.

That quick-turn docket has drawn increasing scrutiny this year as the justices have repeatedly sided with Trump – sometimes with little to no explanation.

“We have had to consider this application on a short fuse – less than three weeks,” Kagan wrote. “We have done so with scant briefing, no oral argument, and no opportunity to deliberate in conference.”

In a few weeks’ time, when the court starts its new term, Kagan wrote, “we will decide cases of far less import with far more process and reflection.”

A long tour through the courts this year

The Trump administration zeroed in on foreign aid programs it said conflict with “American values.” The cuts would reduce or eliminate micro-insurance programs for small farmers in Colombia to recover from climate disasters, for instance, and build “climate resilience in Honduras.”

Nonprofits who receive the foreign assistance funding – including several that work in global health – sued the administration in February, claiming the cuts were an “unconstitutional exercise of executive power” that had created chaos in American foreign assistance efforts.

Those groups pointed to other programs that could be affected, like an effort to help victims of torture.

“Gutting that program punishes torture survivors; people suffering from the deep physical and psychological scars that torturers inflict,” said Scott Roehm, director of global policy at the Center for Victims of Torture, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “The administration is abandoning torture victims to serve a naked political agenda, nothing more.”

The emergency foreign aid case bounced through federal courts for months and, though complicated, it raises fundamental questions about the president’s authority to freeze money approved by Congress. The litigation has increasingly become intertwined with budget negotiations on Capitol Hill and Trump’s effort to cancel the spending through what’s known as a “pocket rescission.”

Federal law requires the administration to notify Congress if it intends “rescind” approved funding, and lawmakers then have 45 days to consider that request. Normally, if Congress does not act to approve the cut within 45 days, the money must be spent.

But in this case, Trump sent the notice within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. After that, the funding approvals expire. Put another way, the White House is effectively seeking to run out the clock – counting on Congress not to act before the end of the fiscal year.

US District Judge Amir Ali, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, ruled for the groups, writing that Trump’s effort “usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place.” After reversing that decision, an appeals court in Washington, DC, later revised its own ruling allowing a more narrow portion of the groups’ litigation to continue.

After Ali again required the money to be spent, the Trump administration raced back to the Supreme Court with an emergency appeal earlier this month. It told the Supreme Court that it intends to spend $6.5 billion of the foreign aid that was at issue in the case by September 30, but it wants the justices to allow it to withhold another $4 billion.

“The president can hardly speak with one voice in foreign affairs or in dealings with Congress when the district court is forcing the executive branch to advocate against its own objectives,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court.

Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily put Ali’s order on hold, giving the justices additional time to review the briefing in case.

In late August, Trump alerted Congress that he intended to claw back that money using a “pocket rescission.” The administration then argued that federal courts shouldn’t intervene while the executive and legislative branches are hashing out a proposed rescission.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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