NEW YORK: The United States said it would revoke Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he took to New York’s streets on Friday in a pro-Palestinian demonstration and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump’s orders.
“We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions,” the State Department posted on X.
Petro, addressing a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, called for a global armed force with the priority to liberate Palestinians, adding, “This force has to be bigger than that of the United States.”
“That’s why from here, from New York, I ask all the soldiers of the army of the United States not to point their guns at people. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity,” Petro said in Spanish.
Reuters could not immediately confirm whether Petro was still in New York. His office and Colombia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.N clashes over Gaza war
The Trump administration has been cracking down on pro-Palestinian voices while countries including France, Britain, Australia and Canada have recognized a Palestinian state — moves that have angered Israel and its ally the U.S.
Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president and a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, hit out at Trump in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, saying the U.S. leader was “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and calling for “criminal proceedings” over U.S. missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the assembly on Friday, denounced Western countries for embracing Palestinian statehood, accusing them of sending the message that “murdering Jews pays off.”
Israel began its assault on Gaza after an attack led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people, with 251 taken hostage. Since then, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and displaced the entire population of the narrow enclave.
Multiple rights experts say this amounts to genocide, a charge angrily denied by Israel, which says the war is in self-defense.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. by video on Thursday after the Trump administration said it would not give him a visa to travel to New York.
Abbas’ office said at the time that his visa ban violated the 1947 U.N. headquarters agreement, under which the U.S. is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the U.N. However, Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.
Colombia’s rocky start with Trump
The United States is Colombia’s main trading partner and its greatest ally in the fight against drug trafficking, but U.S.-Colombia relations got off to a bad start shortly after Trump returned to office in January, when Petro refused to accept military flights carrying deportees in Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Petro said his country’s citizens were being treated like criminals. But he quickly reversed course, agreeing to accept the migrants, after both countries threatened tariffs on each other and after the U.S. canceled visa appointments for Colombians.
Trump this month put Colombia on a list of countries that Washington says have failed to uphold their counter-narcotics agreements, blaming Colombia’s political leadership.
Petro came to office in 2022 promising agreements with armed groups but pivoted last year, pledging to tame coca-growing regions with massive social and military intervention. The strategy has brought little success.
-Brendan O’Boyle
