In a week marked by fiery rhetoric and diplomatic upheaval, relations between the United States and Colombia have reached a new low, with President Gustavo Petro’s U.S. visa revoked after he publicly urged American soldiers to defy orders from former President Donald Trump. The episode, which unfolded against the backdrop of the 2025 United Nations General Assembly in New York, has exposed deepening rifts over U.S. policy in Latin America and the Middle East, and thrown a spotlight on the region’s struggle to assert independence amid great power rivalries.
It all began on September 26, 2025, when President Petro, addressing a crowd outside the U.N. headquarters, called for “all the soldiers of the army of the U.S. not to point their rifles at humanity.” In a moment captured and widely circulated on social media, he declared, “disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.” According to Newsweek, these remarks were made while Petro was in the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly, where leaders from across the globe had gathered to debate urgent international issues.
The U.S. State Department responded swiftly and decisively, announcing that Petro’s visa would be revoked “due to his reckless and incendiary actions” in urging American soldiers to disobey orders and allegedly inciting violence. As reported by Newsweek, Colombian media noted that Petro had already departed the United States by the time the State Department made its announcement. The move is likely to further strain relations between Washington and Bogotá, which have already been tested by disagreements over migration, drug trafficking, and now, public dissent on the world stage.
Petro’s reaction to the visa revocation was characteristically defiant. Posting on X (formerly Twitter) from Bogotá, he stated, “I arrived in Bogotá. I no longer have a visa to travel to the USA. I don’t care.” He elaborated, “I don’t need a Visa but an ESTA, because I’m not only a Colombian citizen but also a European citizen, and in reality, I consider myself a free person in the world.” Petro further asserted that “every person on earth must be free,” underscoring his belief in global citizenship and personal autonomy—sentiments that resonated with some, but infuriated others in Washington.
Petro’s comments were not isolated. The 2025 U.N. General Assembly saw a chorus of criticism from Latin American leaders associated with the so-called Pink Tide, a wave of left-leaning governments in the region. According to reporting by World Socialist Web Site, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for Latin America to remain a “zone of peace,” denouncing the use of lethal force and arbitrary sanctions by the U.S. “The use of lethal force in situations that do not constitute armed conflicts is the equivalent of executing people without trials,” Lula said, implicitly referencing U.S. military actions in the Caribbean.
But it was Petro who struck the most confrontational tone, directly linking U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean to the deaths of migrants—many of whom, he claimed, may have been Colombians. “It is not for stopping drugs from reaching the United States, it is for dominating the peoples of the south,” Petro said, as reported by World Socialist Web Site. He went so far as to call for criminal charges against U.S. officials responsible for the strikes, including Donald Trump, drawing parallels between Trump and Hitler. The U.S. delegation responded by staging a walkout barely five minutes into Petro’s remarks.
The immediate context for these tensions includes a series of U.S. missile strikes in the Caribbean in September 2025. As detailed by World Socialist Web Site, the first strike on September 1 killed 11 civilians after their boat turned back toward Venezuela. Two subsequent strikes killed at least six more, bringing the total to 17 civilian deaths. The Trump administration justified the actions as anti-terrorism operations, but critics—including Petro—insisted the victims were migrants and ordinary Caribbeans, not terrorists or gang members.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon was launching UNITAS 2025, a massive joint military exercise involving about 8,000 personnel from the U.S. and Latin American countries, including Colombia, Brazil, and Chile. The war games, which began on September 15, featured amphibious landings, urban warfare training at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, and the sinking of a target vessel. These exercises, a legacy of Cold War show-of-force tactics, are now part of a broader U.S. strategy to counter China’s expanding economic influence in Latin America.
No American president has exerted as much pressure on the region since the days of Ronald Reagan, as The Wall Street Journal observed. The Trump administration has treated Latin America as an exclusive sphere of influence, ramping up military and economic measures to address migration and drug trafficking. At the same time, China’s trade with the region has exploded, growing from $14.62 billion in 2001 to $483 billion in 2022, and foreign direct investment has soared to $193.2 billion by the end of 2022. Chinese banks are now major lenders, and Beijing’s footprint stretches from ports and power grids to 5G infrastructure.
U.S. officials are increasingly vocal about their concerns. Admiral Alvin Holsey, chief of U.S. SOUTHCOM, testified before Congress in April 2025 that China’s gains in the region “threaten the safety, stability, security, and sovereignty of all nations in our shared neighborhood.” He warned, “Time is not on our side. The Western Hemisphere is suffering from an erosion of democratic capitalism.” Holsey emphasized that Latin America is “on the front lines of a decisive and urgent contest to define the future of our world,” and highlighted the region’s vast natural resources as a strategic prize.
Yet, even as U.S. military ties with Latin American countries remain strong—evidenced by joint exercises and arms sales—regional leaders are increasingly willing to voice dissent. The critical remarks delivered at the U.N. by Petro, Lula, and others reflect both domestic pressures and a broader desire to push back against what many see as heavy-handed U.S. intervention. Still, as World Socialist Web Site noted, the practice of these governments often falls short of their rhetoric, with many Latin American militaries participating in U.S.-led operations even as their leaders criticize Washington from the podium.
The cancellation of Petro’s visa may mark a new chapter in U.S.-Colombia relations, but it is also emblematic of a wider struggle over sovereignty, influence, and the future direction of the Americas. As Washington and Beijing vie for dominance, and as Latin America’s leaders navigate between powerful external forces and restive domestic populations, the region’s political landscape remains as turbulent—and as consequential—as ever.
For now, President Petro appears undeterred, casting himself as a “free person in the world” and challenging the boundaries of U.S. power. Whether his defiance signals a turning point or merely another flare-up in a long history of hemispheric tensions remains to be seen.