Expected quiet.
Thomas Weiss, a professor of international affairs and global governance at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, has those words written on a sticky note on his desk.
Weiss coined the term when the Trump administration drastically reduced the funding of numerous international relief organizations, accusing them of being wasteful, but they remained silent to defend the initiatives that were shut down. initiatives that stop the spread of HIV. initiatives that supply clean water. initiatives that provide starving youngsters with food.
“Anticipatory silence,” according to Weiss, “describes behaving in a way the administration wants you to behave” solely in the absence of explicit instructions.
Weiss claims that the concept is closely related to “anticipatory obedience,” a term coined by Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder to characterize people who supported the Nazi agenda without being told to do so in the hopes that their actions would protect them.
According to Snyder, anticipatory obedience occurs when “people consider what a more oppressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.” By adapting in this way, a citizen is demonstrating the capabilities of power.
According to Weiss, adapting might be a “dangerous slippery slope” to totalitarianism.
“The more people who get on this anticipatory obedience and anticipatory silence, the more dangerous it is,” he states.
And instead of protesting budget cuts and calling for the restoration of their programs, why are certain humanitarian organizations choosing to remain silent? A combination of motivations holds the key.
According to Weiss, the leaders of aid organizations that choose to remain silent may be worried that if they do speak up, the government would single them out even more and eliminate more programs. They might also be working behind the scenes to recoup cash out of concern that a public uproar would undermine their efforts.
The White House did not respond when NPR contacted them for comment.
In the world of charity, this tactic of public quiet is divisive and has been the focus of heated discussions in private text messages and conference rooms. The matter initially came to light following the Trump administration’s attempts to cut off foreign funding, which began on inauguration night and are still going on today. The query: Is remaining silent the best course of action in response to aid cuts?
A debate that no one wants to talk about
Generally speaking, humanitarian organizations and charities like speaking with the media. They send out press releases about their work and ask for coverage. However, a lot of organizations have changed their minds since the inauguration and now only agree to speak with NPR reporters about foreign aid cuts if no one is named and no information that could be used to identify their organization is included.
Nonprofits are “concerned about the increased weaponization of government against nonprofit groups who may disagree with the sitting administration’s agenda,” according to Caitlin Legacki, spokesman for the alliance of charities and nonprofits known as Americans Against Government Censorship.
“A number of groups have taken a step back, both to see how this plays out but also to avoid drawing attention to themselves,” she continues. “There is a very real dynamic where the tallest blade of grass is the first to get cut.”
Some in the field of international aid have expressed frustration with this strategy. “People [in assistance groups] frequently raise their hands in “everyone’s chicken” situations. An official at a major international relief organization who has over ten years of experience in the field asked not to be named since they were not permitted to talk in public. “Why is the sector so chicken?” she wondered.
According to Legacki and Weiss, there is a straightforward explanation for why certain groups are remaining silent. Contracts with the U.S. government, which has historically been the biggest contributor to international health and development initiatives, provide financial support for many of the assistance organizations.
“Some groups are much more reliant on federal dollars than others, and so that’s going to affect their risk tolerance whether it’s drawing attention to themselves, advocating for themselves,” says Legacki.
However, there are hazards associated with speaking up.
“The biggest risk of staying silent is that you let someone else define your story and define the work you’re doing, whether that’s accurate or not,” says Legacki. “Letting someone else do that for you is always a tremendous liability.”
A new landscape for foreign aid
This argument over whether to remain silent or stage a public protest is taking place in the face of a drastically changed foreign aid environment. Elon Musk boasted that he had given the woodchipper access to USAID foreign aid programs while serving as Trump’s adviser in the early months of his presidency. The government did, in fact, eliminate 83% of those U.S.-funded programs in an attempt to combat “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
Insiders who talked to NPR said this set of incidents left international aid workers unsure of how to interact with the media.
According to a senior leader at a mid-sized international relief organization, there are three possible outcomes: “You die on your feet, die on your knees, or die hiding.” The employee asked to remain anonymous since their company had not given them authorization to talk in public.
“Those who support the first strategy, die on your feet, want to fight back loudly and vociferously in public declarations, to “speak truth to power,” the employee is saying.
The second group wants to react, but only to certain criticisms made by the Trump administration. For instance, they want to gather evidence that male circumcision is a successful method of preventing HIV transmission after Trump made fun of the practice in his March 4 speech to Congress.
There is also the “die hiding” reaction, which is the tactic of behind-the-scenes talks or just maintaining a low profile in case speaking up leads to greater targeting of an aid group’s initiatives, according to the senior leader who was upset with the silent approach.
According to other assistance workers, there are subtle ways to promote their job. Michael Vazquez, a founding partner at the Maiden Group, which is in charge of national coalitions of religion organizations, many of which focus on global health challenges, holds that view.
Citing the successful campaign to persuade Congress not to rescind funds already allotted to PEPFAR, the U.S. HIV/AIDS prevention program, he asserts that nuanced advocacy efforts can be effective.
Vazquez claims that religious leaders sent to Republican lawmakers the following message: “As conservatives and Christians, we both have a strong interest in this initiative. Scripture instructs us to give this program our whole attention. It was more effective to adopt a more pastoral stance as opposed to a more hostile one. He claims that leaders in global health have come under fire for not speaking out more, but he contends that this tactful diplomacy might be the most effective means of preserving programs and saving lives.
An “atmosphere of fear”
Former President George W. Bush’s head of the US Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios, may relate to the reasons behind certain organizations’ decision to remain silent. “It is a general atmosphere of fear it’s a legitimate set of concerns,” he asserts. “Their employees are being tortured and arrested in the developing globe. Some of their green card-holding employees in the United States may be deported.
According to Natsios, who is currently a professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government, the Trump administration has deliberately worked to dissuade organizations from speaking out. He points to the publication of one faith-based NGO’s audits in religious publications. Additionally, Elon Musk and other Trump supporters suggested that Lutheran assistance organizations had embezzled money in an early February Xin post.
Natsios claims that the Trump administration has made an effort “deliberately to intimidate the NGOs,”
“They used audits as a weapon to shut [them] up” according to him. According to Natsios, Trump’s team concentrated on stifling Christian organizations since these faith-based organizations, which have historically been associated with the Republican base, could have persuaded Republican senators to keep supporting foreign aid.
NPR requested comment from the White House on whether the administration used auditors to intimidate Christian groups into silence on cuts to foreign aid but did not receive a response in time for our deadline for publication.
An issue that doesn’t just affect charities
Other facets of society also exhibit similar worries regarding protest vs silence. Private universities are facing the prospect and sometimes the reality of loss of federal funding. Businesses fear their profits will shrink because of tariffs.
It is a topic of discussion in the political sphere as well. In April,Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowskiof Alaska spoke to a room full of state non-profit leaders about the turmoil caused by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government.
“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said, and after a long pause continued: “We are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”
More people are starting to speak out
There are some groups that are defying “anticipatory silence.”
One such group is theCenter for Victims of Torture, which helps people who have been tortured recover physically and psychologically. The vast majority of their overseas work was canceled or suspended by the Trump administration, forcing the non-profit to furlough or terminate more than 430 employees 75% of the organization in multiple countries. The group, along with a few other aid organizations, sued the administration over the foreign aid freeze.
Even as the organization has a number of programs that are still frozen by the Trump administration and that could be terminated “we never had any serious consideration of going quiet,” says Scott Roehm, director of global policy and advocacy.
He says he respects each organization’s risk assessment and decision about when to seek media coverage. But for his organization, he says, the path forward was obvious because of the clients they work with.
“We have client after client who were targeted to be tortured because they walked down a street holding a sign protesting against some of the world’s most dangerous authoritarian regimes, dictators,” Roehm says. “Continuing to speak up was about the least we could do to honor their courage.”
Natsios, who advises more than a dozen aid groups, says he is seeing more groups particularly faith-based groups willing to speak up publicly as they “realize what’s happening” and see the full scope of the impact. “There’s a big effort now in the evangelical church to mobilize, and I think you will see much stronger statements come out,” he says.
Still there remains a good deal of frustration among the staff at non-profits that are keeping a low profile. But some say that feeling is misplaced. The official at a large international aid group who requested anonymity put it this way.
“There’s anger that leaders aren’t more bold,” the person said. “But there should be an acknowledgment that the administration is holding hostage every single life we could save in exchange for our silence.”
Your turn
Readers, if you have an opinion to share on this topic, please send your thoughts [email protected] the word “silence” in the subject line. We are especially interested in hearing from those who work in the nonprofit sector. Please include your name and the best way to contact you. We may use your comments in a follow-up story.
Copyright 2025 NPR
