U.S. embargoes on Japan, 1940–1941

this country has been progressively bringing economic pressure to bear on Japan since last summer, now a year

the embargo, as the Ambassador knows, applies to all nations except Great Britain and the Western Hemisphere.

it was only at the height of our national defense preparations that we were imposing a few embargoes on important commodities.

Memorandum by the Secretary of State Regarding a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Horinouchi)

The United States was the main supplier of the oil, steel, iron, and other commodities needed by the Japanese military as it became bogged down by Chinese resistance

instituting a full embargo on exports to Japan, freezing Japanese assets in U.S. banks, and sending supplies into China along the Burma Road.

Now, if we cut the oil off, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had war.

if these oil supplies had been shut off or restricted the Japanese Government and people would have been furnished with an incentive or a pretext for moving down upon the Netherlands East Indies

he issued, on July 26, an Executive order freezing Japanese assets in the United States in the same manner in which assets of various European countries were frozen on June 14, 1941.

any measures restricting oil exports to Japan would undoubtedly inflame Japanese public opinion exceedingly

under the oil quota allowed Japan by this Government, Japan was in a position to have a number of tankers loaded with oil and transported to Japan if and when it so desired.