For almost a year the two sides negotiated about a possible deal but their demands were ultimately
incompatible - the US was not prepared to recognize a Japanese sphere in the Pacific or China and the Japanese were not prepared to settle for being subordinate to American interests. A badly handled decision by the United States to impose an oil embargo on Japan in the summer of 1941 left the Japanese with a stark choice - either they attacked to secure their oil supplies or they accepted the American terms