REUTERS

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 US 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 UN 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.

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 US.

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 UN General Assembly on Tuesday, saying the US leader was “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and calling for “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.

The United States is Colombia’s main trading partner and its greatest ally in the fight against drug trafficking, but US-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.