Former Costa Rican President Arias says US revoked visa

Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias said Tuesday that the United States had revoked his visa to enter the country, just weeks after he criticized President Donald Trump on social media.

"I received an email from the US government informing me that they have suspended the visa I have in my passport. The communication was very terse, it does not give reasons. One could have conjectures," Arias told reporters.

Calling Trump 'a Roman emperor'

In a social media post on Facebook in February, the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Trump was behaving like "a Roman emperor."

"It has never been easy for a small country to disagree with the US government, much less so, when its president behaves like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do," he wrote.

"In my governments Costa Rica never received orders from Washington, as if we were a 'Banana Republic.'"

Arias' post, just ahead of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to Costa Rica in February, also labelled the US "a nation in search of an enemy."

Ex-president says Costa Rica yielding to US pressure

Arias had taken to social media critiquing President Rodrigo Chaves' administration's yielding to US pressure, as Washington sought to counter China's influence in the region, while also accepting deported migrants from third countries.

Other Costa Rican lawmakers have had their US visas revoked who have not fallen in line with President Chaves objective of curtailing China's influence in the region.

Now 84, Arias was the president of Costa Rica between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010.

Edited by John Silk