The Nazis switched from a commercial to a partially disengaged strategy, as discussed in Chapter 8, and were joined by a Japanese empire whose own arc of policy ran along parallel lines. While London once more failed to pursue the commercial containment of Berlin before the war, the United States and Nazi Germany competed in prewar trade negotiations, concluding agreements with many countries that would soon join the Allies, be occupied by the Axis, or both. Those US pacts were the original down-payment on American hegemony, providing the template for the postwar trading system.