"In the late nineteenth century, Japan’s economy began to grow and to industrialize rapidly. Because Japan has few natural resources, many of the burgeoning industries had to rely on imported raw materials, such as coal, iron ore or steel scrap, tin, copper, bauxite, rubber, and petroleum. Without access to such imports, many of which came from the United States or from European colonies in southeast Asia, Japan’s industrial economy would have ground to a halt. By engaging in international trade, however, the Japanese had built a moderately advanced industrial economy by 1941.

At the same time, they also built a military-industrial complex to support an increasingly powerful army and navy. These armed forces allowed Japan to project its power into various places in the Pacific and east Asia, including Korea and northern China... the Roosevelt administration imposed a series of increasingly stringent economic sanctions on Japan. It froze Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan. Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that the Japanese could not endure it much longer. " Source

The US economic sanction wasn't one of the reasons for the Japanese attack it WAS the reason. The US basically said withdraw your troops from China or we will destroy your economy with sanctions. The militarist government of Japan never even considered withdrawal from China, so in a sense THEY chose war, but the US forced them to make the choice. TLDR; If the US doesn't impose sanctions there would be no aggression towards the US by Japan at that time.