The United States has revoked the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro after he urged American soldiers to disobey Donald Trump’s orders during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York on Friday.
Speaking at a rally outside the UN headquarters alongside Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Mr Petro called for a global armed force “bigger than that of the United States” to liberate Palestinians.
“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,” the Colombian president said in Spanish, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and using a megaphone to address approximately 2,000 protesters.
The US State Department swiftly responded, posting on X: “Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence. We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
Mr Petro, who was already en route to Bogotá when the announcement was made, defended his position, stating the US decision “breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based.”
The left-wing leader, Colombia’s first leftist president who took office in 2022, had been in New York for the UN General Assembly, where he accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and demanded “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in the Caribbean.
The visa revocation marks the first time in decades the United States has stripped a Colombian head of state of a visa, with the last occurrence being President Ernesto Samper in 1996 over alleged cartel financing of his campaign.
The incident comes as the Trump administration escalates military action against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean. According to NBC, strikes on drug traffickers inside Venezuela could begin within weeks, with US officials saying Trump is contemplating drone strikes on trafficking groups’ members, leadership, and laboratories.
The administration claims Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is not doing enough to stop the flow of illegal drugs, despite Venezuela not being a significant cocaine producer but rather a major transit point for flights carrying drugs elsewhere.
In recent weeks, the US military has attacked at least three boats from Venezuela allegedly carrying narco-traffickers and drugs. On September 2, Trump announced a strike that killed 11 people aboard what he claimed was a drug-carrying vessel operated by the Tren de Aragua gang.
A second strike on September 15 killed three men, with Trump claiming “big bags of cocaine and fentanyl” were floating in the ocean afterward, though no evidence was provided. A third strike on September 19 also reportedly killed three people.
At least eight US ships with more than 4,000 personnel have been deployed to the Caribbean, along with F-35 fighter jets and at least one armed MQ-9 Reaper drone stationed in Puerto Rico.
Washington has increased its bounty on Maduro to $50 million (£37 million), accusing him of working with cartels to send cocaine, fentanyl and gang members to the United States.
Human rights groups and some lawmakers have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes. Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, stated: “US officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs.”
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff said he was drafting a war powers resolution to prevent further strikes without Congressional authorisation, warning: “I don’t want to see us get into some war with Venezuela because the president is just blowing ships willy-nilly out of the water.”
The strikes have pushed already strained US-Venezuela relations to breaking point. Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez accused the US of waging “an undeclared war” in the Caribbean, stating: “People, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea.”
Roger Waters, the 81-year-old Pink Floyd co-founder known for his pro-Palestinian activism, stood alongside Petro during the demonstration. Waters has faced his own controversies, including potential prosecution in the UK for supporting Palestine Action, a group recently proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti responded to the visa revocation by suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visa should have been revoked instead, adding: “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.
The Trump administration has taken an increasingly confrontational stance toward Latin American drug cartels, designating many as foreign terrorist organisations. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on X: “We will track them, kill them, and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere — at the times and places of our choosing.
Most illegal fentanyl transported to the US comes from Mexico, not Venezuela, though the administration maintains Venezuela serves as a key transit point for drug trafficking operations.
The visa revocation does not prevent Petro from attending multilateral forums such as the UN General Assembly, where heads of state are granted diplomatic access, but analysts say the symbolic weight of the sanction is considerable.
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