Believe it or not, this policy’s origins are old. They go back as far as WW 2 at least, when Nelson Rockefeller tried to secure South America as a strategic source of petroleum. In Canada, J Howard Pew tried to do the same
Of course, both had huge personal stakes in both developments, as is usually the case with the interests behind grand strategy
This could also be said for the implicit grand strategy towards Russia after communism which had wonderful benefits for the American financial companies which benefited from the Oligarchs plunder of the economy during its phoney economic liberalization.