The US said on Friday it would revoke Petro's visa after he took to New York's streets on Friday to join a pro-Palestinian demonstration and urged US soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump's orders.

"I no longer have a visa to travel to the United States. I don't care. I don't need a visa... because I'm not only a Colombian citizen but a European citizen, and I truly consider myself a free person in the world," Petro said on social media.

"Revoking it for denouncing genocide shows the U.S. no longer respects international law," he added on a post on X.

Israel has repeatedly denied genocide charges over its actions in Gaza and says it is acting in self defense.

Petro, addressing a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside 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."

Petro is not the first Colombian president to have his US visa revoked. In 1996, then-President Ernesto Samper's visa was canceled over a political scandal involving allegations that the Cali drug cartel had funded his presidential campaign.

Relations between Bogota and Washington have frayed since 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.

Trump has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, and the biggest US deployment in years has raised fears in Venezuela of an invasion.

Petro, whose country is the world's biggest cocaine producer, has said he suspects some of those killed in the US boat strikes were Colombian.

Last week, the Trump administration decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs, but stopped short of economic sanctions.

The countries are historical allies, but ties have soured under Petro -- Colombia's first leftist leader.

Colombia's foreign ministry issued a statement Saturday rejecting the move, calling the Trump administration's decision a "diplomatic weapon" in violation of the UN's 1945 charter.

"It would be essential to find a completely neutral host country (for the UN)" if the countries' relations are not set aside for UN diplomacy, the statement said.

The South American country's Interior Minister Armando Benedetti wrote on social media Friday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visa should have been revoked rather than Petro's.

"But since the empire protects him, it's taking it out on the only president who was capable enough to tell him the truth to his face," Benedetti said.

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