Japan doesn't attack the US?

China was providing aid to the Nationalist Chinese, aid that was going through Indochina. And the oil was still being sold because it was in compliance with trade agreements already in place, shortly after those agreements expired the embargo commenced.

The US could have abrogated those trade agreements, no? Why didn't it?

Indeed, as late as July 24, 1941, Roosevelt stated he would not issue an embargo order because that would force Japan to attack the East Indies, and proposed that if Japan withdrew from Indochina, the US would push for the neutralization of Southeast Asia. Similarly, Roosevelt didn't work out a policy of sanctions until after the move into Indochina.

(Amusingly the embargo order was not interpreted this way, but it remains that it's not a sign of full-fledged support for China).

The embargo has to be squared with America's concern about Southeast Asia's resources and supply routes, which it saw as vital to the British War Effort. This squares with the dates of the embargos and sanctions of Japan, which followed expansion in Indochina, not southeast Asia.
 
Stealing a quote from wwII.com...

Roosevelt told Churchill that he could not commit the US to entering the war if the Japanese attacked British or Dutch possessions in the East.

At the Placentia Bay Conference in answer to Churchill's urging that the US commit to war with Japan if the Japanese moved against British possessions, Roosevelt stated that –'I shall never declare war,' – he could not without Congressional consent – 'If I were to ask Congress to declare war they might argue about it for three months.'......

Churchill eventually settled for... 'Any further encroachment by Japan in the South-West Pacific would produce a situation in which the United States government would be compelled to take counter-measures, even though these might lead to war between the United States and Japan.'.... be inserted in a note Roosevelt intended to hand to the Japanese ambassador in Washington. Roosevelt agreed to append these phrases to the note.

A serious disappointment for the British followed. The statement which Roosevelt had prepared merely announced that they had met at sea to discuss the workings of Lend–Lease, and that the accompanying naval and military discussions had in no way involved any future commitments other than as authorised by Act of Congress. Churchill was deeply shocked at this proof of how far Roosevelt was in fact shackled by Congress and the law.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/2/Pt1.pdf
 
Japan needed indochina as springboard to attack the dei. Once they take indochinq tthe us will tighten the noose, even if its not a full oill embargo.

If china attacks malaya and the dei, without attacking tje philippimes, then the us will not declare wwar. It will, howeveer massovely build up forces in thee philippime, tje pacific islamds amd probably australia. Aggressive patrolling, on both sides, lilely ,ean shots are fired and war happens six to nine months later. But now tje us has defensible forward bases.....
 
The expansion may not need to be so massive.

The Japanese were so consistently inadequate against enemy armor that a brigade of modern British tanks in Malaysia could equal the disaster that came close OTL at Singapore.
 
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