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What if the Japanese asked the Germans for diplomatic support in keeping the DEI from participating in the US oils embargo and continuing to sell to Japanese buyers from July 1941 on, and the Germans were willing to make major efforts in this direction, essentially by threatening hostages?

Of course, the Dutch cannot control British or American merchants ships, so only the oil the Japanese could carry themselves and pay for in non-dollar currencies or precious metals could be purchased, but hey, that is something, and makes a leak in the embargo.

For their part, the Germans are willing to threaten and punish narrowly or broadly as they can to exert indirect influence on Dutch officialdom in the DEI.

For instance, they could first order civil and corporate officials of Dutch oil companies in occupied Netherlands to keep pumping and selling. If they meet resistance they could try selective threats or torture.

One variation might be the withholding of coal or petrol supplies from the homes of said officials, or from whole apartment blocks or communities, or the whole country.

A retaliatory fuel embargo becomes more threatening to Dutch civilian well-being the longer it goes on and and the closer it gets to fall and winter.

How might things go down from there? Would Dutch officialdom at oil facilities and ports in the DEI buckle under the pressure or hold firm (supported and pressured by the US and UK no doubt) and just rack the consequences to Dutch hostages as more atrocities to be resisted now and avenged later?

If the plan works, what do Japan and the US do in terms of war participation or not, through 1942 and beyond?
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