For­mer Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Joseph Mon­del­lo has died.

The U.S. Em­bassy made the an­nounce­ment of the death in a news re­lease to­day.

Mon­del­lo served as the US Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween Oc­to­ber 2018 and Jan­u­ary last year.

The Em­bassy said he died Mon­day at the age of 84.

Charge’ d’Af­faires Shante Moore said, “Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo hired me to serve as his Deputy Chief of Mis­sion, which even­tu­al­ly af­ford­ed me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve as Charge’ d’Af­faires. Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo con­sid­ered serv­ing as the U.S. Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go as one of the great­est hon­ors of his ca­reer. I re­mem­ber him as a gen­tle­man and leader with an open-door pol­i­cy.”

Act­ing Deputy Chief of Mis­sion Cindy Diouf not­ed that, “Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo was a man of great char­ac­ter and pa­tri­o­tism, and he will be deeply missed. He was a nat­ur­al leader who led by ex­am­ple and cared deeply about those un­der his lead­er­ship and the rep­u­ta­tion of the Unit­ed States. He demon­strat­ed courage and com­mit­ment through­out the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and re­fused to leave his team even as in­fec­tions rose and bor­ders closed. Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo pro­vid­ed in­spi­ra­tion and stead­fast lead­er­ship through­out his tenure, earn­ing the re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion of the U.S. Em­bassy com­mu­ni­ty. Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo al­so pos­sessed a good sense of hu­mor and was a great sto­ry­teller. He loved and re­spect­ed the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and was proud to serve his coun­try. Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo was more than our leader; he was our friend.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley shakes hands with US Ambassador Joseph Mondello at a meeting in September 2019.

Mon­del­lo had been vo­cal on Trinidad and To­ba­go's re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela dur­ing his tenure.

In May 2020, he spoke on the con­tro­ver­sial March 27 vis­it of Venezue­lan Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez to Trinidad, dis­clos­ing he had ex­pressed con­cern to Young about this in re­la­tion to T&T’s vi­o­la­tion of the Rio Treaty.

The am­bas­sador’s state­ment con­tra­dict­ed what was said by Young on two oc­ca­sions.

“Nor­mal­ly I do not com­ment on pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions with host gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. Since the Gov­ern­ment has spo­ken pub­licly about my May 6 con­ver­sa­tion with Min­is­ter Young, though, I wish to af­firm that I ex­pressed con­cern to the Min­is­ter in that con­ver­sa­tion about the con­sis­ten­cy of Del­cy Ro­driguez’s vis­it to Port of Spain with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s oblig­a­tions as a par­ty to the Rio Treaty," he had said.

He added, “Ar­ti­cle 20 of the Rio Treaty makes it un­am­bigu­ous­ly clear that all mea­sures im­posed by the Or­gan of Con­sul­ta­tion—like the trav­el re­stric­tions on Ms Ro­driguez —are bind­ing on all treaty par­ties, whether or not they vot­ed in favour of such mea­sures.”

On June 8, 2020, he crossed the road from the Em­bassy on Queen's Park West, to meet with Black Lives Mat­ter demon­stra­tors in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, against the killing of George Floyd.

He had said that racist ac­tions are not what the Unit­ed States stood for.

The Em­bassy to­day of­fered con­do­lences and best wish­es to Mrs Mon­del­lo and the Mon­del­lo fam­i­ly on his pass­ing.