Sounds like the opposite reasoning may have some truth:

"Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."

Perhaps they hope he can rein in American Catholics?

The church is on board with all the anti-abortion stuff, but the rest not so much

Because the Vatican should make its choices based on Secular politics and your fee fees instead of character.