As I personally know, the US was before the war primarily all for total neutrality. But the president had obviously a means to support enemies of Germany. Would even if no attack on the USA happened the United States join the war on the allied side given enough time had passed ?
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I’ll share my opinion. The US wasn’t in total neutrality, not at all. They basically gave Britain, France, China, and even the Soviet Union war material. Of course these counties “borrowed” the money for it, but it’s all the same. Plus the US boycotted and restricted trade with Axis powers like Germany (boycott) and Japan (restrict). FDR clearly favored the allies early in the war too. There were also American warships running convoy escorts, and things like that which caused American casualties. FDR just didn’t have enough public support to go to war, but the US wasn’t strictly neutral. Now to answer your question, FDR did have the whole “none of your young boys will be sent into any foreign wars” speeches, but he does kind of contradict himself. Allowing volunteers (which wasn’t allowed pre-war) and convoy escort patrols. FDR wanted to join the war against Germany, it just didn’t have a political excuse to do so. So what do you do instead? You heavily favor one side while completely cutting off the other side. Eventually an aggressive nation like Japan will respond by taking the resources they need through war and bingo, you have a political excuse to make war. But even if Japan didn’t attack, American public opinion was heavily anti-axis to begin with. So eventually FDR might’ve been compelled to declare war under public opinion and political pressure, which is also what happened in a lot of neutral counties in both world wars (take Brazil in WW1 for example.) The atomic bomb was also developed with the intent on dropping it on Berlin to directly kill Hitler. So I personally think America would’ve eventually joined the war officially whether they were attacked or not, and I think it’s pretty safe to say they were already unofficially heavily involved in the war due to before mentioned reasons.
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Hello Penpen, in my humble opinion, I strongly believe that FDR (Roosevelt) was already on a collision course to isolate the Isolationist at home and force both Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire into outright war with the USA. Tell tale signs, of course, the landlease act but also the growing amount of actions and sanctions to hamper the Japanese on waging war, as they were doing rather ruthlessly for almost a decade. Also I think it would be strategically nor tactically sound to not take hold of the Philippines as the main goal the Japanese had was gaining access to the Dutch East Indies for oil, rubber and other necessary materials.
Moreover, to even contemplate not destroying the US Pacific fleet would also be a suicidal decision for the Japanese, which I think, is rather ironic. So, again: Japan and the USA were on a collision course and both had good reasons to start a war against eachother, or so they thought. Again, my humble opinion 
Thank you for bringing up this interesting topic!
Greetings from the Netherlands
Harry Janssens
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Your answer is greatly appreciated and I share your opinion. I fairly ew to this forum and love how I can get deep and interesting facts from the fellow history nerds of the world. I will have your opinion in mind when making future conclusions of the Second World War.
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Thx for the beautiful information good sir . I shall use it for the future of my life conclusions around the subject of the Second World War
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I too appreciate your reply to my comment. As you I am a new member of the Timeghost Army and I too find this friendly forum very nice.
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There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the US was going to enter the war the big question was when. As we all know the Japanese forced that hand. In addition to suppling multiple nations with material, equipment and food the US was supplying arms, vehicles and ships.
Add to that the Japanese were encroaching on US territories in the pacific and it was no secret the Japanese wanted some of those islands to conduct bombing raids on the biggest threat in the region which was Australia plus all the raw materials many of them had.
In the end everyone knew whether they were axis or allies that the US would be adding their economic might to the war it was a question of when.
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Good answers everyone. Sound like a good way to think about it
I thank you all for your time and knowledge
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You are quite welcome and I hope you will enjoy this forumđź‘Ť
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I suspect that the USA was gearing up to eventually enter the war with Germany, based on their policies to that date, such as Lend-Lease and their escort support for convoys in the North Atlantic. I strongly doubt that they wanted war with Japan, and while they anticipated a Japanese attack, there seems to be considerable evidence that the USA was most concerned about a Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies and the British Empire, with the possibility of an attack on the Philipines, but with the false perception that most US possessions in the Pacific were out of danger, and the notion that a policy of colonial warfare would be adopted by Japan i.e. limited warfare to seize foreign possessions at most, with the distinct possibility of the USA remaining neutral, despite imposing sanctions on Japan.
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