QCOSTARICA — Two-time president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias, is among the Costa Ricans who will no longer be able to enter the United States.
At a press conference on Tuesday, April 1, the former president told us of having been notified by email from the U.S. Embassy in San José that it had revoced his U.S. visa.
Although neither the U.S. Embassy in San José nor Arias himself had issued official statements, Tuesday afternoon, Arias held a press conference confirming that he had been notified by the U.S. Embassy.
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Arias, who governed Costa Rica for two terms (1986-1990 and 2006-2010), has been critical of the Rodrigo Chaves administration’s stance on relations with China, arguing that the current administration “obeys Washington’s orders.”
Last February, just hours before the arrival of then-Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Costa Rica, Arias warned on social media: “I hope to God this doesn’t continue with the new tenant of the White House.”
In recent interviews, he recalled that during his terms, Costa Rica was never a “country that took orders from Washington” and emphasized that the country must make foreign policy decisions “with the national interest in mind, not geopolitical alignments.”
The former president stated publicly that he would be respectful of the U.S. government’s decision. Although he avoided calling it retaliation, he did make clear his differences with the country’s economic, political, and trade policies.
“Friends sometimes agree and sometimes don’t, but in a democracy one has the right to discern, and I will continue to do so. The French gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States, and now this country, instead of promoting freedom, is limiting it by restricting thought and criticism with the elimination of visas. They will not silence me. The United States is a paradigm of democracy, but it is displaying characteristics of autocracy,” Arias emphasized.
The former president recently questioned the obedience stance adopted by the current Rodrigo Chaves administration toward the administrations of Joe Biden and Donald Trump; and, more recently, he also criticized the Republican’s mistreatment of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, during a recent visit to the White House.
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For his part, Costa Rica president Rodrigo Chaves, said: “The Americans, who are the most powerful nation in the world, don’t wake up one morning saying, ‘Let’s take away the visa of so-and-so.’ There are a series of conjectures that must be reasoned out.”
Former presidential candidate and now political analyst, Otto Guevara, pointed out once again that many Costa Rican politicians are afraid of losing entry to the country, and as a result, many rushed to delete offensive messages about the country or any comments favorable to the Chinese telecom Huawei regarding the 5G issue from their social media accounts.
“A few weeks ago, after the cancellation of some female congresswomen’s entry visas to the US, I made a comment stating that I was sure that many people in politics would be reviewing their social media posts to delete any negative references to the Trump administration and/or positive ones related to Huawei and the Chinese government.
“Today, after the cancellation of Óscar Arias’ visa became known, I am absolutely certain that those who didn’t delete messages then are doing so this time. There is a great desire to go see Mickey Mouse and go shopping in the US,” Guevara stated on the social media platform X.
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