What date did us place a trade embargo on Japan?

Answer 1

Attack on Pearl Harbor

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Background to conflictMain article: Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor

The naval strike was intended to neutralize the US. Pacific Fleet, and hence protect Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, where Japan sought access to Natural Resources such as oil and rubber. Both the US. and Japan held longstanding contingency plans for war in the Pacific which were continuously updated as tensions between the two countries steadily increased during the 1930s, with the Japanese expanding into Manchuria and mainland China. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland; the "Southern Operation" was designed to assist these efforts.

In 1940, following Japan's invasion of French Indochina and under the authority granted by the Export Control Act, the United States halted shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools, and aviation gasoline, which was perceived by Japan as an unfriendly act. The US. did not stop oil exports to Japan at that time in part because prevailing sentiment in Washington was that such an action would be an extreme step, given Japanese dependence on US. oil, and likely to be considered a provocation by Japan.

Japanese planning staff studied the 1940 British attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto intensively. It was of great use to them when planning their attack on US naval forces in Pearl Harbor.

Following Japanese expansion into French Indochina after the fall of France, the US. ceased oil exports to Japan in July 1941, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had earlier moved the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii and ordered a military buildup in the Philippines in the hope of discouraging Japanese aggression in the Far East. As the Japanese high command was (mistakenly) certain any attack on the British Southeast Asian colonies would bring the US. into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way for Japan to avoid US. naval interference. An invasion of the Philippines was also considered to be necessary by Japanese war plans, while for the US, reconquest of the islands had been a given of War Plan Orange in the interwar years.