Lawyers for the government had said it would miss a deadline to release more than $1.5 billion in payments for past aid work and sought a late intervention from the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily let President Donald Trump keep freezing foreign-aid payments while the US Supreme Court weighs whether to lift an order that would require disbursement of as much as $2 billion.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a court-imposed midnight deadline that would have required the Trump administration to release $2 billion in frozen foreign aid, a goal that the government has claimed it is unable to meet.