If you mean Perry's expedition, than you are undoubtedly correct.
They very clearly wanted an Empire in the 1930s+ and were pursuing it. Why Roosevelt thought he could embargo them without them attacking us I will never know for sure. Perhaps he believed the Navy's view of the efficacy of Plan Orange. Though that itself may well have been a product of racist underestimation as much as anything else. I have always suspected that Roosevelt believed he could force the Japanese to back off in China and that the Germans would provide the needed excuse for war themselves by sinking one of our "neutral" USN ships in the North Atlantic. I am virtually certain that Roosevelt wanted to take care of Germany first and without a Pacific war at all.
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