What Fundamentally Motivated The New American Engagement With China And Japan In The 1840s And 1850s?

What Fundamentally Motivated The New American Engagement With China And Japan In The 1840s And 1850s? Through this trade, the United States hoped to economically exploit Japan for its resources, while simultaneously showing European powers the strength the U.S. had gained. In a word, it was trade that motivated the United States’s interest in China