U.S.-Japanese Relations before WWII

By Percy L. Greaves Jr.

 

Relations with Japan had been strained for some time. The Roosevelt administration was fully aware of Japan's dependence on imports. Yet, as we have seen, it had terminated America's long-standing commercial treaty with her. After January 1940 Japan had to ask permission on a case-by-case basis whenever she wanted to import from the United States. In July 1940 the administration had further prohibited exports to Japan by requiring her to get a license to purchase aircraft engines and strategic materials. (When sale of aviation gas, defined by the United States as 86 octane or higher, was embargoed on July 1, 1940, she had contrived a way to use 76 octane in her planes.) The administration was tightening an economic noose around Japan's neck bit by bit, forcing her to look elsewhere for the supplies and materials she had been accustomed to buying from the United States.

 

The Japanese had considerable commercial interests in Southeast Asia, especially in French Indochina (now comprising the states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). After France fell in June 1940, Japan had negotiated with the Vichy government of unoccupied France for permission to occupy French Indochina, to take over bases there, and to maintain order. The rather helpless Vichy government had agreed. As trade with the United States became more difficult, Japan's interests in Indochina gained in importance and she turned more and more in that direction for the foods and raw materials she needed. Trade pacts concluded later with Indochina assured Japan of uninterrupted supplies of rice, rubber, and other needed raw materials.

 

US Ambassador Grew in Japan kept Roosevelt fully advised of her precarious economic situation and urgent need for imports. Chief of Naval Operations (NCO) Stark had warned the president of the danger of imposing an oil embargo on Japan. Stark had "made it known to the State Department in no uncertain terms that in my opinion if Japan's oil were shut off, she would go to war." He did not mean… (Read more)

 

Source: Mises.org