Japan’s policy of expansion in the early 20th century was motivated by what

United states declared trade war on them, the united states and its allies banned trade to japan in ww2 forcing them to expand and conquer for resources, japan is a small island with little resources in the first place, it mainly gets said resources from trade and these trade bans forced it to expand to gain resources but before that they had already begun to expand because even with trade they still needed resources