Gustavo Petro: USA withdraw visa for calling against Trump

Due to a sensational Trump-critical call on the edge of the UN General Batte in New York, Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro loses his US visa. In a speech on a street in New York, Petro asked US soldiers to “disregard and incorporate commands to violence”, the US State Department justified the decision on the visa deprivation. Petro, who had previously suffered sharp criticism of US President Donald Trump before the UN-Plenum, was unmoved.

The Colombian head of state himself published a video in online networks, which shows how he speaks to a large crowd in New York with a megafon in pro-Palestinian protests. He called on the “nations of the world” in Spanish to put soldiers for an army “larger than that of the United States”. “Therefore, from New York, I ask all soldiers of the US Army not to focus on humanity. Diselessly Trump’s command!

Petro had traveled to New York for the general debate of the UN General Assembly, in which he sharply criticized Trump’s government. In his speech on Tuesday, he called for a criminal investigation by the latest US attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug boats in the Caribbean. Petro accuses the USA that unarmed “poor young people” were also killed in the missions. He suspects that Colombians were also under the victims.

The US government was outraged by Petro’s protest on New York’s streets. “We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his ruthless and rebellious actions,” said the US State Department in the online service X.

The Colombian head of state reacted calmly. He was already back in Bogotá, he wrote in online networks on Saturday. Although he no longer has a US visa, he was “no matter”-especially since he doesn’t need a visa for entry because he also has an EU pass.

Petros Interior Minister Armando Benedetti had previously written in online networks that the visa should have been withdrawn not Petro, but the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “But since the empire protects it, it turns against the only president who was able to tell him the truth in the face,” added the minister in relation to the United States.

The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Trump government in a declaration that with the visa deprivation it used a “diplomatic weapon” against Petro and thus violated the UN charta. “It would be crucial to find a completely neutral host country,” it said with a view of the UN seat.

Under Petro, the relationships between the long -standing partners USA and Colombia have deteriorated significantly. Last week, the US government announced that Colombia no longer announced as an ally in the fight against drug crime. Petro failed to contain cocaine production, Trump justified the step.

The left -wing nationalist head of state of Colombia’s neighboring country Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, even accuses Trump of leading a drug cartel and flooding the USA with intoxicants. Maduro, for his part, sees “The biggest threat” for Latin America in the US military missions for alleged drug smuggling boats for a hundred years.

Due to the increasing tensions, Venezuela held military exercises on Saturday. In the states of Sucre and Falcón, the Venezuelan armed forces fired cannons near the coast and used amphibian vehicles, as the state broadcaster VTV reported. In addition, the military practiced its reaction to a cast of the uninhabited island of Patos near the border with Trinidad and Tobago. Helicopters and paratroopers were used.

A few weeks ago, Maduro had already called up reservists, militia and young Venezuelans for shooting exercises in the barracks and held military exercises for civilians.