A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that President Trump can withhold some $2 billion in foreign aid payments, overturning a lower-court order that had blocked the administration’s plans to slash disbursements from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifted Biden-appointed District Judge Amir Ali’s temporary restraining order, which forced USAID to continue making billions of dollars in foreign assistance payments for work already done by organizations the agency contracted with.

Ali issued the restraining order in February in response to a lawsuit filed by two nonprofit organizations, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Journalism Development Network, after Trump or

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