New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had a meeting scheduled this week with Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
However, the meeting was called off after the State Department said it was unacceptable, and U.S. diplomats informed the Colombian government that it could violate the terms under which Petro was allowed to enter the country.
The State Department canceled Petro’s visa last year, and the outgoing leftist president only had a limited travel allowance to attend a U.N. Security Council Meeting.
No other activities outside that meeting were allowed.
Exclusive: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was planning to meet with leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro while he was in town for U.N. events, but the Trump administration effectively nixed it in a behind-the-scenes effort. https://t.co/2nPDt0jAQQ
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 10, 2026
More from The New York Times:
Colombian officials said they agreed to cancel the meeting, which was scheduled for Friday, after officials at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, contacted Colombia’s foreign ministry.
Mr. Petro, in a social media post, said he had neither been informed of restrictions on his visa nor been told he could face arrest. He said he considered it “hardly democratic” that the U.S. government had restricted his ability to speak with New York’s mayor, and added that he had also planned to deliver a lecture in Boston.
While foreign heads of state typically have visas that let them freely enter the United States, the U.S. State Department canceled Mr. Petro’s visa after he appeared at a pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan in September and, denouncing U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, called on U.S. soldiers to disobey presidential orders.
The cancellation followed a series of tense standoffs between Mr. Petro, an avowed leftist, and the Trump administration.
“As the secretary has said, a visa is a privilege not a right. Any individual’s U.S. visa is at risk of revocation if they visit America and outrageously implore U.S. soldiers to disobey orders of the duly elected president of the United States. Despite President Trump’s efforts to find common ground, the same individual continues with this kind of behavior,” the State Department said in a statement.
“I disagree with the interference of the U.S. government in the electoral campaign, whose decisions correspond solely to the people of Colombia in the full exercise of their freedom. As I wrote today on the pages of The Washington Post, my disagreements with Washington’s international policy—which, in the case of Gaza, was opposed by the majority of the world’s peoples—do not prevent me from upholding my word on the agreement we made in the Oval Office of the White House, regardless of the political differences we have,” Petro said.
“With President Donald Trump, I agreed, without detriment to our national sovereignty—because my homeland is Colombia—to all joint efforts in the fight against cocaine and fentanyl trafficking. My word is expressed in actions that go beyond merely seizing a quantity of cocaine greater than that of the previous three governments combined; it includes effectively reducing, as measured by satellite by the National Police, the areas of coca leaf cultivation, and through an effective policy such as the voluntary eradication carried out by 31,000 farming families growing coca leaf, who have already submitted their verification to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and have had nearly 9,000 hectares certified out of the 13,000 submitted under a plan—before the end of my government—of more than 30,000 hectares,” he added.
Nunca se me informó de restricciones a mi visa, y de hecho fui al funeral de Jessi Jackson en Chicago.
Nunca se me informó que sería arrestado.
Considero que quienes asistimos al periodo de la Asamblea de Naciones como presidentes de la república estamos protegidos por la ley… https://t.co/uoLAznkQoi
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 11, 2026
The New York Post shared further:
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and Manhattan have also been investigating Petro for alleged ties to drug traffickers, the Associated Press reported in late March.
Petro, a former rebel leader, has repeatedly slammed the Trump administration, including for its support of Israel, the bombing of drug boats in the Caribbean, and immigration crackdowns.
Following the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January, Trump suggested Colombia — and Petro — may be America’s next target in his war on drug trafficking.
“I swore not to touch a weapon again since the 1989 Peace Pact, but for the homeland, I will take up arms again,” Petro wrote on X in response.
Trump described Petro as “terrific” after the world leaders met at the White House in February.
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