[News] US Revokes Visa of Colombian President after New York Protest

[Anti-Imperialist News]

palestinechronicle.com
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/us-revokes-visa-of-colombian-president-after-new-york-protest/>
US Revokes Visa of Colombian President after New York ProtestSeptember 27,
2025
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Colombian President Gustavo Pedro and rock legend Roger Waters take part in
an anti-war protest in New York. (Photo: video grab, via social media)

*By Palestine Chronicle Staff
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-staff>*

The US revoked President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he urged American
soldiers to defy orders during a protest in New York and denounced
Washington’s role in Gaza.

The US State Department announced on Friday that it would revoke the visa
of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, citing what it described as his
“incendiary actions” during a pro-Palestinian street 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 department
wrote on X. “We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary
actions.”

Petro posted a video of himself on social media addressing a large crowd in
Spanish through a megaphone, while his translator conveyed his call for
“nations of the world” to send soldiers for an army “larger than that of
the United States.”

“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.

Colombian media reported that Petro was already returning to Bogotá on
Friday night.

He had traveled to New York for the UN General Assembly, where earlier in
the week he delivered a strongly worded speech denouncing the Trump
administration. Petro demanded a criminal investigation into US missile
strikes on boats in the Caribbean that Washington claims were part of an
anti-drug operation.

Petro said more than a dozen “poor young people” had been killed in the
attacks, some of them Colombian. Washington insists the strikes targeted
drug traffickers linked to Venezuela, whose president it accuses of running
a cartel. Trump has since sent eight warships and a submarine to the
southern Caribbean, the largest US deployment in the region in years,
sparking fears of a possible invasion in Venezuela.

During his remarks at the UN, Petro also said: “Free Palestine. If Gaza
falls, humanity will die.”

In May 2024, Petro withdrew the Colombian ambassador from Tel Aviv and one
month later, he suspended Colombia’s coal exports to Israel, calling for an
immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the blockade in Gaza to avoid being
complicit in “genocide.”

Relations between Washington and Bogotá have deteriorated under Petro,
Colombia’s first leftist president. Last week, the Trump administration
decertified Colombia as an ally in the war on drugs, though it stopped
short of imposing sanctions.

In a post on X, Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti argued that
it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visa that should have
been revoked, not Petro’s.

“But since the empire protects him, it punishes the only president who had
the courage to speak the truth to his face,” he wrote.

*(PC, AJA)*
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