{"id":457006,"date":"2025-09-28T04:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457006\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T04:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:16:10","slug":"i-dont-care-colombia-president-petro-hits-back-after-us-revokes-his-visa-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457006\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t care\u2019: Colombia president Petro hits back after US revokes his visa | Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro<\/a>, has dismissed the US decision to revoke his visa and accused Washington of violating international law over his criticism of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI no longer have a visa to travel to the United States. I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t need a visa \u2026 because I\u2019m not only a Colombian citizen but a European citizen, and I truly consider myself a free person in the world,\u201d Petro said on social media on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevoking it for denouncing genocide shows the US no longer respects international law,\u201d he added in a post on X.<\/p>\n

A UN inquiry said Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide<\/a> but Israel has repeatedly denied genocide charges and says it is acting in self-defence.<\/p>\n

Petro addressed pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside UN headquarters in New York during the UN general assembly on Thursday, calling for a global armed force with the priority to liberate Palestinians, and urged US soldiers \u201cnot to point their guns at people. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state department posted on X that it would revoke Petro\u2019s visa<\/a> \u201cdue to his reckless and incendiary actions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Colombia\u2019s foreign affairs ministry said using visa revocation as a diplomatic weapon goes against the spirit of the UN, which protects freedom of expression and guarantees the independence of member states at UN events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UN should find a completely neutral host country \u2026 that would allow the organisation itself to issue authorisation to enter the territory of that new host state,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n

Petro is not the first Colombian president to have his US visa revoked. In 1996, the then president Ernesto Samper\u2019s visa was canceled over a political scandal involving allegations that the Cali drug cartel had funded his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Relations between Bogot\u00e1 and Washington have frayed since Donald Trump returned to office. Earlier this year, Petro blocked deportation flights from the US, prompting threats of tariffs and sanctions. The two sides later reached a deal.<\/p>\n

In July, both countries recalled their ambassadors after Petro accused US officials of plotting a coup, a claim Washington called baseless.<\/p>\n

Petro cut diplomatic ties with Israel<\/a> in 2024 and banned Colombian coal exports to the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has dismissed the US decision to revoke his visa and accused Washington of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-457006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115279994810954435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}