History

During the World War II, Japan was very dependent on most of the natural resources and a number of the natural resources were only obtainable in Japan through imports. Imports were crucial to the economy of Japan during the World War II in order to keep in pace with the modern states of the time. One of the most crucial natural resource that was heavily lacking in Japan was oil and the United States had plenty of supplies. This disadvantage on the side of Japan was highly utilized to make Japan bow down to the requirements of the united state. It therefore required that the United States president be consulted on major economic activities in Japan since running most business depended on oil. The United States could then use the state of Japan of lacking oil to heavily suppress them during the war.

The oil production within Japan borders was not possible. Japan could not satisfy even 10 percent of her domestic consumption therefore, the reliance on the United States for oil supply of up to 80 percent was inevitable. It literally implied that the American president had the destiny of Japan survival. President Roosevelt did not waste chances he decided to choke Japan by locking all the oil supplies even the smallest drop from reaching the Japanese people. Japan had no option other than giving in to the demands of the United States.

Oil supply in the United States was the leading factor which led to Japan getting defeated in the war since they could not afford the needed capacity for peace building or domestic uses. The major supply of oil to U.S cannot be said to be from Saudi Arabia or the Persian Gulf in fact, the leading oil supply for U.S was Canada and of course Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela were also important sources. The Persian Gulf oil source merely accounted for about 10 percent of the U.S oil supply to Japan in 1940s.

The neighbors of the United States such as Mexico and Canada had very substantial unconventional and conventional oil production capacities. The neighbors had extremely good prospects for hiking the production potential and this made a steady fulfillment of oil demand in America. Much of the oil output was characterized in the central and south of America then followed by Europe with the Middle East being last in the list.

Venezuela was another major source of the U.S oil import during the 1940s. In fact, it was considered the leading in oil producing in the entire Western Hemisphere often estimated to be 77 billion barrels. Venezuela in addition had the largest deposits of heavy oil which can be in the near future be economically exploited. The PAD Districts 3 and 5 were also main oil reserve and production areas for U.S in the 1940s with Texas, Louisiana, California and Alaska being with the largest concentration. However, since 1940s, the oil production share has risen by about 50 percent over the last 10 years. These improvements have been typical in the deepwater sources of the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to the United States enforcing the Export Act, Japan has already accumulated up to 54 million oil barrels. The United States had only exported oil to Japan until 1940 and all was stopped. It is estimated that the oil export to Japan from the United States dropped significantly to about 60 percent.