The US State Department on Friday said it would revoke the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro after accusing him of urging American soldiers to disobey orders during a pro-Palestinian protest in New York.
“Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the State Department wrote on X. “We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
Footage posted by Petro on social media showed him addressing a crowd in Spanish through a megaphone, with a translator relaying his call for nations to raise an army “larger than that of the United States.”
“That is why, 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.
A source from the Colombian presidency confirmed that Petro left New York for Bogotá on Friday night. He later noted that he holds Italian citizenship and would not need a US visa to travel.
Petro, in New York for the UN General Assembly, had earlier used his speech to denounce President Donald Trump’s administration and called for a criminal probe into recent US strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean. He claimed more than a dozen unarmed civilians — some possibly Colombian — were killed in the raids. Washington insists the strikes are part of anti-narcotics operations against Venezuela, which it accuses of running a cartel.
The Trump administration last week decertified Colombia as an ally in the drug war but stopped short of imposing sanctions. Relations with Washington have frayed sharply under Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president.
The visa move has already drawn backlash in Bogotá. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti wrote on X that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visa “should have been revoked instead of Petro’s,” accusing Washington of shielding its allies while punishing critics.
