Colombia's President Petro fumes at US President over visa cancellation: ‘Your wife, Mr. Trump, or your daughters…’
Colombian President Gustavo Petro's visa was revoked by the US State Department following his controversial statements at a New York protest.
The US State Department on Friday announced that Colombian President Gustavo Petro's visa will be revoked due to his “incendiary actions” at 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,” a spokesperson for the state department tweeted.
“We will revoke Petro's visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
On Friday, Petro released a video of himself speaking Spanish to a large audience using a megaphone on his social media account, with his translator repeating his statements asking for “nations of the world” to send troops for 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 said.
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Petro addresses UNGA at NY
On Friday night, Colombian media stated that Petro was on his route to Bogota from New York.
On Tuesday, Petro was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where he sharply denounced the Trump administration and urged for a criminal probe into recent US raids on accused drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean.
Speaking further, he asserted that over a dozen unarmed “poor young people” were killed in the attacks, while Washington claims the activities are part of a US anti-drug campaign off the coast of Venezuela, whose president allegedly run a cartel.
Petro, whose nation is the world's largest cocaine producer, has indicated that he believes some of those killed in the US boat attacks were Colombian.
Gustavo Petro breaks silence on his US visa cancellation
Petro unleashed a stinging attack on Washington on Saturday after discovering that his visa to the United States had been denied while he was returning to his nation from New York. Petro said in a post on X that he just found that his US visa had been revoked after landing in Bogota.
He charged the United States of “breaking all norms of diplomatic immunity” that protect leaders of state at the UNGA.
“I arrived in Bogotá and found out that I no longer have a US visa. To go to Ibagué for the great Tolima convention for democracy, I don’t need a visa. Separating the US from Colombia is what the mafias need. What the US government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based. There is total immunity for presidents attending the Assembly, and the US government cannot condition the opinion of the US,” he stated.
He went on to suggest a connection between visa cancellation with his vocal criticism of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
“The fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed entry and that my visa was revoked for asking the US and Israeli armies not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all of humanity, demonstrates that the US government no longer complies with international law.”
Calling Trump a defender of “genocidaires”, Petro said, “Your wife, Mr. Trump, or your daughters, should tell you that it is not right to kill babies. My daughters tell me so.”
