The United States announced it will revoke Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York on Friday and urged U.S. soldiers to defy orders from former President Donald Trump.

We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions,” the State Department said in a post on X.

Petro addressed a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, calling for the creation of a global armed force tasked with liberating Palestinians.

This force has to be bigger than that of the United States,” he said. In Spanish, he also urged U.S. troops: “Do not point your guns at people. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.

It was not immediately clear whether Petro remained in New York. His office and Colombia’s foreign ministry had not responded to requests for comment.

The announcement comes amid a backdrop of the Trump administration cracking down on pro-Palestinian voices, even as several countries, including France, Britain, Australia, and Canada, have recognized a Palestinian state — a move that has angered Israel and its ally, the United States.

Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president and a vocal critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, had earlier condemned Trump during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, accusing him of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and calling for “criminal proceedings” over U.S. missile strikes on suspected drug-running vessels in the Caribbean.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the U.N. on Friday, criticized Western countries for recognizing Palestinian statehood, asserting that such actions “send the message that murdering Jews pays off.”

The latest tensions unfold against the backdrop of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people and left 251 hostages.

Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed over 65,000 Palestinians and displaced the entire population of the densely populated enclave, according to Gaza health authorities. Multiple human rights experts have described the conflict as genocide, a charge Israel rejects, maintaining that its operations are acts of self-defense.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. via video on Thursday after the U.S. denied him a visa to travel to New York. Abbas’ office argued that the visa ban violates the 1947 U.N. headquarters agreement, which generally requires the United States to allow foreign diplomats access to the U.N. Nevertheless, Washington has maintained that it can deny visas for reasons related to security, extremism, and foreign policy.