President Donald J. Trump scored two major legal victories this week — one in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and another at the Supreme Court — further advancing his America First agenda.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court lifted an injunction that had forced the State Department to continue paying out foreign aid, siding with the administration’s decision to halt the flow of taxpayer dollars overseas.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a lower court was wrong to compel the Trump administration to resume foreign assistance previously approved by Congress.

The dispute began January 20, the day of Trump’s second inauguration, when he signed an executive order placing a 90-day pause on all foreign aid. That order was followed by sweeping changes to USAID — the primary U.S. foreign aid agency — including placing much of its staff on leave and considering bringing the agency under the State Department’s control, Reuters reported.

Two federally funded nonprofits, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Journalism Development Network, sued, claiming the freeze was unlawful. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, sided with the groups earlier this year, ordering the administration to release nearly $2 billion to global humanitarian partners.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, writing for the majority, said the groups “lack a cause of action to press their claims” and that only the Government Accountability Office has the legal standing to challenge a president’s decision to withhold foreign aid. Henderson, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, stressed that the ruling did not weigh in on the constitutional question of whether Trump’s freeze infringed on Congress’s spending power. Her opinion was joined by Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee.

Circuit Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, dissented, accusing the court of enabling the Executive Branch to undermine separation of powers. “The court’s acquiescence in and facilitation of the Executive’s unlawful behavior derails the carefully crafted system of checked and balanced power,” she wrote.

The White House praised the decision. A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said the ruling blocks “radical left dark money groups” from “maliciously interfering with the president’s ability to spend responsibly and to administer foreign aid in a lawful manner in alignment with his America First policies.”

The administration also secured a unanimous ruling at the Supreme Court this week that will streamline environmental review processes for major infrastructure projects, potentially expediting highways, airports, pipelines, and railways.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court, ruled that federal environmental assessments should be limited in scope, calling the issues in the case over an 88-mile crude oil railway project from Utah’s Uinta Basin “not close.”

“Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness,” Kavanaugh wrote. He later added, “Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock.”

Even the court’s three liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — concurred with the ruling, though Sotomayor wrote separately to stress that agencies should limit reviews to their specific areas of expertise.

The decision follows recent Supreme Court rulings striking down regulations on wetlands and cross-state air pollution, marking another setback for environmental activists and another win for Trump’s push to cut bureaucratic red tape.