Hey Jim!
I don't think it's actually a conspiracy, it's more of an Industrial disease. We've been introducing negative species to our environment for hundreds of years. Sometimes intentional. You live in Jacksonville, and I spent 30 years there, from 1983 until 2009. I watched the woods go from mostly Palmetto, to a species they call "Winter Honeysuckle" up here in the Tennessee valley. While surveying, I cut through miles of the stuff.
Using that logic, we would also have to use the invasion of SHB as an attempt to corner the honey market by African honey producers, which I can tell you by correspondence with a Nigerian beekeeper, is almost non-existent. This guy heard he could increase his honey production by using Langstroths, and wanted to know how to make one, because they didn't have a market there. He still uses KTBH.
I suppose the Chinese or other aggressors from Asia may have introduced the hornet, but that's kind of a "doomsday" machine scenario. That would reduce the actual production of honey in these environments, because the only species that has a natural defense against these monsters is Apis Cerana. They are honey producers, and used commercially, but not as productive as A. Mellifera.
I speculate they hitched a ride on a cargo ship, along with all the crappy, cheap, Chinese junk that gets shipped here for pennies in volume.