Retaliation
The United States was not alone in its concern. Great Britain, which maintained colonies in the Far East also feared an aggressive Japan. Immediately following the enactment of the Act, the British ambassador would be asked by Japan to close the Burma Road, a key supply route of arms for China. Britain initially refused the request, but for a short period of time closed the road. The British and the Dutch followed suit in embargoing trade to Japan from their colonies in southeast Asia.
The ending of the commercial trade treaties further eroded the possibilities for dialogue between the two nations. Noted political economist Robert Higgs points out:
| “ | Roosevelt and his subordinates knew they were putting Japan in an untenable position and
...that the Japanese government might well try to escape the stranglehold by going to war. |
” |
Robert Stinnett notes in his book, Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, that America had broken the Japanese diplomatic code and knew that due to the pressure exerted by the Export Control Act, war was quickly becoming an inevitable outcome. He points to a deciphered communiqué between Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda and Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura on July 31: “Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas.”
Read more about this topic: Export Control Act
Famous quotes containing the word retaliation:
“The retaliation is apt to be in monstrous disproportion to the supposed offense; for when in anybody was revenge in its exactions aught else but an inordinate usurer?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)