US says it will revoke Colombian president’s visa

Gustavo Petro, then a leftist presidential candidate, during an interview in Santa Marta, Colombia, May 6, 2022. The United States said on Sept. 27, 2025 that it would revoke Petro’s visa, after he called for American soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump while participating in a pro-Palestinian rally in New York. (Federico Rios/The New York Times)

By JOHN YOON

The United States said late last week that it would revoke the visa of Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, after he called for American soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump during a pro-Palestinian rally in New York.

The State Department said on social media that it would revoke Petro’s visa because of “his reckless and incendiary actions,” adding that he had stood on a New York street and “urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.”

Petro, who has clashed with Trump before, addressed a protest on Friday across from the United Nations building, where leaders were gathered this past week for the annual meeting of the General Assembly.

“We must set up an army more powerful than that of the United States and Israel,” he said in Spanish in a video recording posted on his office’s official YouTube page, adding that he would present a resolution that would order the United Nations to configure an army whose first task is to help establish a Palestinian state.

Petro has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. In his speech to the protesters, which lasted about half an hour on Friday, he compared what he called a genocide there with the Holocaust.

“I ask all the soldiers of the United States Army not to point their guns at humanity,” he said. “Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.”

Earlier in the week, Petro criticized Trump in his speech to the General Assembly, saying that he was complicit in genocide. Other countries like Australia, Britain, Canada and Portugal also placed themselves at odds with the Trump administration by formally recognizing Palestinian statehood on the eve of the United Nations gathering.

Petro previously said in April that he believed the Trump administration had revoked his visa to the U.S.

His office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that he would revoke the visas and legal status of people who perform activities that are counter to the national interest and oppose American policies.

Óscar Arias Sánchez, the Nobel laureate and former Costa Rican president, is among the most high-profile people who have had their visas canceled this year as the Trump administration barred people who it said had “hostile attitudes” toward the United States.

Martín Torrijos, a former president of Panama, and Ricardo Lombana, a presidential candidate, also had their visas revoked this year. They said the move was in retaliation for speaking out against recent deals their country had made with Trump.

A senior State Department official testified in July that the Trump administration had assigned his office to vet foreign students’ social media posts for messages critical of Israel and to revoke their visas.