Former Costa Rican president who compared Trump to ‘Roman emperor’ says U.S. has revoked his visa

Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias talks during an interview with Reuters, after he said the US revoked his visa. (Mayela Lopez/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Óscar Arias says he has had his visa to enter the United States revoked.

Arias, 84, said he doesn’t know why his visa was canceled but accepts that the US has the right to make such a decision.

Miguel Guillén, the secretary general of Arias’ National Liberation Party, said the former president had received an email notifying him of the move.

“I don’t know if the revoking of my visa is the product of some sort of retaliation, because I say what I think (and) write what I say,” Arias told a press conference Tuesday.

In recent weeks, Arias had posted messages on social media that were critical of U.S. President Donald Trump and his policies.

In one post, he compared Trump to “a Roman emperor” who tells other nations what to do. In another, he accused Trump and Vice President JD Vance of insulting and threatening Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a heated White House meeting in February.

“If someone wants to use a reprisal to silence me, well obviously they’re not going to silence me,” he said Tuesday.

CNN has contacted the State Department for comment.

Arias was Costa Rica’s president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his role in negotiating an end to the Central American conflicts of the 1980s.

Written by Djenane Villanueva and Michael Rios, CNN