Selling everything to everyone really did not work though, Because the main reason the embargo happened was Japan invaded French Indochina and cut America off from all trade with China meaning everything we sold to China was cut off and we could not collect the money China owed us because of Japan, and all rubber we were buying from China and French Indochina were essentially cut off from us. It was sort of a tit for tat situation you block us from getting rubber we block you from getting oil.

On top of the fact that Japan has been threatening us for ownership of the Philippines for a while before the embargo and we could not give up the Philippines because it was a very important strategic point in the Pacific for our Navy. I have a strong feeling even if we never embargo Japan they would have still attacked us.