Joe Biden’s diplomatic meetings in Israel and Saudi Arabia last week saw an American empire scrambling to shore up its hegemony in the region. The president’s tour came at a time when China’s economic influence encroaches on the Middle East and as Vladimir Putin prepared to visit to Iran in a rare and foreboding trip abroad.

Two days after Congress passed a bill increasing the military budget by $840 billion, the president attended the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Saudi Arabia. Surrounded by the United States’ authoritarian allies in the region, Biden declared, “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”

The summit comes after the president’s meeting with Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid — only months after the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh — which saw them sign a joint pledge to deny Iran nuclear weapons. On his tour, Biden appeased another Middle Eastern ally with an American journalist’s blood on its hands, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman prior to the regional summit.