Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday night paused a lower court-imposed midnight deadline to restart $2 billion in foreign aid payments after the Trump administration paused 10,000 awards.

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.

WASHINGTON—Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halted a judge’s requirement that the Trump administration resume nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid payments before midnight, in an order issued hours before the deadline.