[tzs]

The first search was something like "Why is Japan having a naphtha shortage?". The results from that were almost all saying it is due to the war in Iran. A later search was something like "Why was naphtha production in Japan lower in 2025 than in previous year?" because somewhere in there I had looked for a table of production by year and there was a decline in 2025.

Nothing I saw in any of the results suggested that any policies of the current Japanese administration were a significant cause of the production decline in 2025, or that the decline was enough to cause any shortages itself, and that the drop in imports due to the war is much larger to the point that shortages would be nearly as bad now even if production had not dropped.

I should have done more more search, to find out when the current administration came to power. I knew it was in 2025 but assumed it was early in the year. It was actually late in the year, after production had dropped.