In all honesty, I think the writer was just being bluntly honest about what’s considered an emergency and why in American decision-making circles. If they’d thought a little more, they might have remembered to disguise what they’re talking about a little bit (“international law” “absolutely necessity to protect civilian vessels from harm” something like that), but as it is it was mostly just, welp, we’re losing tons of money now, like enough to impact us, no way in hell can we have that.

Again, not even saying it’s a bad thing to jump into action when someone’s cutting our trade routes and attacking merchant ships. Just contrasting.