Sanders has made clear during his campaign that he shares many of the left wing’s long-held critiques of American imperialism — from opposition to clandestine interference across the world, but particularly in Latin America and the Middle East, to disapproval of the American military’s global footprint. It’s safe to say that a Sanders presidency would mark a dramatic departure from the last several decades of American foreign policy.
In recent weeks, he has been alone among Democratic presidential contenders in speaking positively about far-left leaders abroad. He said Bolivia’s former president Morales “did a very good job in alleviating poverty and giving the indigenous people … a voice.” Sanders argued that Brazil’s Lula “has done more than anyone to lower poverty in [the country] and to stand up for workers.” And the senator has drawn lofty parallels between his own campaign and recent mass protests in Chile, Lebanon and Iraq. In a high-profile speech in 2017, he criticized America’s past actions in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, Latin America and Iraq as “just a few examples of American foreign policy and interventionism which proved to be counterproductive.”
Warren, by contrast, has been more cautious on foreign affairs, straddling the line between the left and the Democratic foreign policy establishment. She has not been as definitive about the situation in Bolivia, where Morales was forced to resign under pressure by the military after allegations of election fraud in what Sanders deemed a “coup.” Nor has she gone out of her way to praise and cultivate relationships with leftist figures around the world.
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