Two historic anniversaries on April 29 and May 7 may have gone unnoticed, but they need to be recalled for the lessons they provide for the current situation in the Gulf of Hormuz, President Donald Trump’s forthcoming state visit to China and preventing World War III.
April 29 is remembered as the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. What needs to be recalled, however, is that conflict began Aug. 2, 1964 when a U.S. Navy destroyer, the Maddox, exchanged fire with several North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Tonkin Gulf. (A report of a second incident on Aug. 4 was subsequently determined to not have taken place.)
Despite that there were no U.S. casualties and the Maddox reportedly sustained only one bullet hole in its hull, driven by strong anti-Communist fervor, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on Aug. 7, giving President Lyndon Johnson virtually unlimited authority to respond militarily. This one small incident led to the deployment of over 500,000 American troops to South Vietnam, and America’s decade-long involvement in a war that had over 56,000 U.S. deaths, and which ended tragically with the U.S. retreat out of Saigon on April 29, 1975, arguably the most ignominious foreign policy event in America’s 250-year history.
The second date, May 7, recalls the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania, a British commercial ship by a German submarine in 1915. That sinking of a foreign flag vessel played a significant role in the outbreak of World War I.
The most important lesson from both anniversaries for the U.S. in 2026 is to be aware of how a single incident, no matter how small or inadvertent, can precipitate a dramatically larger conflict. It would thus be important to avoid:
Given the political attitude in the U.S. toward the Chinese Communist Party, even a small incident, between Chinese and U.S. naval vessels could, just as occurred in 1964, set off a series of rapid escalations that, if unchecked, could contain the “seeds” of World War III. Military conflict between the U.S. and China could rapidly expand to hostilities involving: North Korea and South Korea and Japan; Israel and Iran; and Russia and NATO.
The date of April 29, however, also offers another opportunity, one which can positively shape the future. It involves another type of “seeds” ― seeds of peace through agriculture.
April 29 is a key date in the historic “citizen diplomacy” legacy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s connection to the state of Iowa. On that date in 1985, 31-year-old Xi Jinping arrived in Des Moines as a member of an agricultural delegation from Hebei Province that called on Gov. Terry Branstad in his office at the Iowa State Capitol.
That visit was, in fact, a continuation of Iowa’s unique connection to the Xi family, since five years earlier I had escorted Xi’s father, Gov. Xi Zhongxun, around Iowa in 1980 when he visited at the invitation of Gov. Robert Ray.
Given that historic connection, I was honored to join Ambassador Terry Branstad and other “Iowa old friends” to attend the dinner in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023 where we heard President Xi pose this “fundamental question” to the American government and the American people: “Are we partners? Or are we adversaries?” I believe it is essential for the continued prosperity of our two peoples, and for all people on our planet, that China and the United States turn away from being “adversaries.”
To that end, I have written that the forthcoming state visit of President Trump to Beijing in May provides an opportunity to answer that “fundamental question” by the U.S. and China announcing a partnership to address the greatest challenge humanity has ever encountered: Can we sustainably feed the 9.5 to 10 billion people who will be on our planet by 2050, including an additional 1 billion people on the Africa continent?
Specifically, I have proposed a 25-year-long Sino-American collaboration to help uplift Africa by upgrading farm to market roads across that continent, which has an acute need for enhanced rural infrastructure. Iowa’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and World Food Prize founder Norman Borlaug, America’s greatest agricultural scientist, famously said “If you want to feed Africa, build roads.”
China and the United States can build a road to global peace through agriculture. With further Iowa inspiration, perhaps a third “partner,” the papacy, can be enlisted in this historic endeavor.
I recall standing on the hill at Living History Farms in 1979 as Pope John Paul II told the 350,000 people assembled there that they are the stewards of the great agricultural gifts from God with an obligation to use them to feed the hungry and all mankind.
Given the recent visit to Africa by Pope Leo XIV, there is the potential for this China-U.S. partnership to be expanded to be a triumvirate of the three most significant leaders on our planet joining together to avoid World War III by building a global Peace Through Agriculture, or as I phrased it in Latin: PAX AGRICULTURA.
Wouldn’t this be a magnificent Iowa citizen diplomacy historic achievement as part of the 250th anniversary of American independence that Trump launched at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on July 3, 2025?
Ambassador Kenneth Quinn is president emeritus of the World Food Prize. In 2019, he chose PAX AGRICULTURA as the theme for the Norman Borlaug International Symposium in Des Moines. It was a reference to the historic term PAX ROMANA, a 200-year period of peace and prosperity between 27 BCE and the year 180 AD.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How an Iowa legacy can help avoid World War III | Opinion
Reporting by Kenneth Quinn, Guest columnist / Des Moines Register
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