Did the US provoke Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor?

In the four years leading up to Pearl Harbor, the US implemented ever more restrictive trade measures on Japan, including embargoes on much-needed oil, gasoline, and scrap metal, and froze Japanese assets. Other Western countries followed suit. As a result, Japan lost access to nearly 90% of its imported oil and three-quarters of its overseas trade.

Then, with limited oil reserves that were estimated to last only three years, resource-poor Japan grew increasingly desperate and looked to oil-rich Southeast Asia, which was already occupied by Western colonialists.

In a series of negotiations in November 1941, Japan ultimately proposed to withdraw from southern Indochina and not enter other parts of Southeast Asia if the US and other Western countries would lift their embargoes and cease aiding China. The US countered by demanding that Japan withdraw unconditionally from China and sign nonaggression pacts with other players in the region. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor less than two weeks later.