The US never had a choice about joining the war or not. I know that we knew in advance about Pearl Harbor and I know that the US had already decided to join the war which precipitated specific aggression from the Axis powers against the US but there was no choice. Japan or Germany or both would have eventually come into conflict with the US due to any interests of one or more of the parties.
I disagree. The US took the political stance as being neutral to appease the citizens, the population was for isolationism, while simultaneously changing imports/exports to drive the Japanese to attack us. The political elite wanted war, we were doing everything against the Japanese to start a war other than declare war. We put in place an oil embargo against the Japanese which forced them to attack, they knew with this embargo we were acting against our neutral stance and therefore wanted to destroy any chance of us joining the war, at least within a reasonable timeframe. Which is why they sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese underestimated our ability to produce warships as well as the timeline we were able to enter the war.
