(FORTUNE Magazine) – California consultant Sam Bamieh has some advice for Americans doing business in Saudi Arabia: ''If you're there, get out. If you're not, don't go.'' Thanks to the oil glut, the once flush desert kingdom is in a cash crunch, and the business climate has turned sulfurous. A self-described ''old Saudi hand'' who has been doing export-import and real estate deals for Saudi Arabia, Bamieh boasts connections to the Saudi royal family. But in February he brought suit in California against a Saudi partner -- all foreign businessmen must have Saudi sponsors. The issue: the division of profits. When Bamieh returned to the oil kingdom, he was held against his will in several hotels and government palaces from March to July. He claims he was threatened with death and with deportation to Libya, and was allowed to leave only after getting the lawsuit dismissed and signing a letter of ''repentance.'' Some 45,000 Americans live and work in Saudi Arabia. Stories like Bamieh's, while unusual, are becoming more common. From a peak of $22.6 billion in 1981, total U.S.-Saudi trade dropped to $6.5 billion last year. With money tight, says a spokesman for a U.S. multinational, contract fights are becoming pandemic. The State Department counted 26 cases in 1986 in which U.S. businessmen were prevented from leaving the country because of commercial disagreements. Its brochures have repeatedly warned that ''if the Saudi party in a commercial dispute files a complaint with the authorities, Saudi law permits barring the exit of the foreign party until the dispute is completely settled, including payment of any damages.'' The kingdom's practice of detaining businessmen, says Frederick Dutton, a Washington lawyer who represents the Saudis, is a ''Third World way of beating the city slickers who went over there in the boom times, tried to make a fast buck and slip out.'' As for Bamieh, says Dutton, ''we're going to beat him in court.'' Saudi officials decline to comment. Many incidents go unreported. The president of one Southwestern energy company says that two of its employees have been barred from leaving Saudi Arabia since July by a local agent he is trying to replace. The company hopes to win their release in the Saudi courts and, fearing reprisals, will seek U.S. help only as a last resort. Litigation can be chancy. ''There's no such thing as an enforceable written contract in Saudi Arabia,'' says an executive of a New York transportation and construction company who fled in 1982 -- driving a Land Rover over a desert trail to Jordan -- after falling out with his Saudi partner. ''As an infidel, you have no rights.'' For Sam Bamieh getting out wasn't enough; he wants to get even. He has reinstated his original lawsuit and filed a second, for $58 million, charging his partner and a senior Saudi official with such things as false imprisonment, extortion, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He has launched a lobbying jihad on Capitol Hill, urging the creation of an official mechanism for resolving commercial disputes. His Congressman, California Democrat Tom Lantos, has called for hearings before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1987.