US cites Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “reckless and incendiary” call for US troops to disobey President Donald Trump during New York pro-Palestinian rally, as reason for revoking his visa.
The United States has revoked the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro after he urged US soldiers to disobey orders from President Donald Trump during a pro-Palestinian rally in New York.
The State Department announced the decision on Friday, calling Petro’s comments “reckless and incendiary.”
“Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the department posted on X. “We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
Video shared by Petro on social media showed him addressing a large crowd in Spanish with a translator. He called on “nations of the world” to form an army “larger than that of the United States” and told American soldiers to “obey humanity” rather than “Trump’s order.”
“From here in New York, I ask all soldiers in the United States Army not to point their rifles at humanity. Disobey Trump’s order! Obey the order of humanity!” Petro declared through a megaphone.
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Colombian media reported that Petro had already left New York and was en route to Bogotá by Friday night. He had been in the US for the UN General Assembly, where he used his Tuesday address to sharply criticize the Trump administration and call for an international criminal investigation into recent US military actions in the Caribbean.
Washington has said its strikes targeted drug-trafficking boats off Venezuela as part of an anti-narcotics operation. Petro claimed more than a dozen unarmed civilians — some possibly Colombian — were killed in the attacks.
The Trump administration has escalated its military presence in the region, dispatching eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, a move that has fueled fears in Venezuela of a potential invasion.
Relations between Washington and Bogotá have been increasingly strained since Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, took office. Last week, the Trump administration decertified Colombia as a partner in the fight against drugs, though it stopped short of imposing economic sanctions.
Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti reacted angrily to Washington’s move, suggesting on X that the visa of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have been revoked instead.
“But since the empire protects him, it’s taking it out on the only president who was capable enough to tell him the truth to his face,” Benedetti wrote.
