Why the Hull Note could be read as an ultimatum

Cordell Hull's note proposed territorial integrity, non-interference, equal commercial treatment, and a multilateral non-aggression arrangement, while demanding Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina. Those principles could sound equitable in Washington yet coercive in Tokyo, where Matthew Perry's forced opening of Japan remained a pointed counterexample to American non-interference. Equal commercial treatment also looked different to a smaller industrial economy facing cheaper American goods produced on a far greater scale. From Washington's perspective, Japanese expansion through French Indochina threatened the approaches to the Philippines and Dutch East Indies and could remove America's remaining economic leverage. Yet the document required repeated Japanese concessions without an equivalent American retreat. A reciprocal American withdrawal from the Philippines might have made the note look less like an ultimatum backed by a rapidly widening imbalance of force.