When Bernie Sanders first ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016, Matt Duss was among those who identified foreign policy as an underdeveloped area in the progressive critique of the party consensus. At the time, Duss was the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He joined Sanders’s Senate staff in early 2017, and later worked on the Sanders campaign as its foreign policy advisor, playing a key role in developing the broader vision that was articulated in 2020.

In this interview with Jacobin contributing editor Daniel Bessner, Duss talks about his background, his experience with Washington’s foreign policy establishment, and what a progressive US foreign policy would mean for Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. The views here are Duss’s own.

Duss’s opinions don’t always reflect those advocated in Jacobin. Nonetheless, they offer a sophisticated articulation of the arguments of the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party and reflect the ideas that would have influenced foreign policy should Sanders have won the election.