We are all familiar with the famous saying that, “there is one born every minute.” The aphorism is referring to suckers; people who will believe what they are told regardless of how absurd or outrageous the representation may be. In the Middle East, there is a word, a well-known colloquial, when someone is called a “friar.” Plainly stated, it refers to someone who could be easily suckered.

Is Donald Trump playing the role of the sucker in the Middle East trip? The President believes that peace comes through economics. After all, why fight with somebody from whom you are making money and is buttering your bread? Rational people might very well see the world as Donald Trump does. However, the people we are dealing with in the Middle East have an agenda.

The Saudi Arabians, the Emirate States, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, all have the same agenda. They subscribe to the view that the Middle East and eventually Europe and the United States should be ruled by Islamic law. In England and in many cities in the United States, such as Detroit, the Islamic way is on the ascendency, and traditional western values are in the dumpster.

In the United States, a significant number of young people do not respect the United States, and are ready to adopt a confused socialist, Arabic, Middle Eastern style agenda. Most of those young people have no idea what it is they are giving up and what they will get in return. They do not realize that Islamic law, as practiced in the Middle East, degrades women, minorities, Africans, Christians, Jews, and many others.

The Saudi Arabians financed and helped to plan 9-11, resulting in the murder of thousands of Americans and the destruction of the World Trade Center. The Administration of George Bush quickly spirited those Saudi Arabians out of the country so that they were never properly questioned as to their role in one of America’s greatest disasters.

The seven Emirate States were created in 1971, essentially to provide fuel for wartime economies. Virtually every nation in the Middle East, save Israel, are based upon founding tribal families favored by the west. The Kingdom of Jordan, for example, was given to the Hashemite family because Winston Churchill was concerned that in post-World War I wars, oil would be the deciding factor as to whom would be victorious. Saudi Arabia was given to the Saud Family.

The Middle Eastern Arab nations see Donald Trump as a salesman, a shyster, someone who will be around for a limited period of time. In their view, democracies are weak, trembling, and temporary impediments to Islamic victory. Christians are seen as idolaters, idol worshippers. Jews are accepted as monotheists, so long as they are subordinate to the Muslim way. For the Arab world, any economic deal that benefits the totalitarian Arab rulers is acceptable.

What is the United States getting out of the deals that Donald Trump is entering in the Middle East? Boeing, Boeing stockholders and its employees will do well. Whether they can really manufacture as many planes as are being purchased by the Arabs is another question. However, those airlines, such as Emirates, will rule the skies. They will drive American airline companies out of business, which will not be in a position to compete with the state funded Arab airlines. Nobody has talked about that. If Donald Trump is naive enough to accept a $400 million 747 aircraft, he is receiving an out-of-date plane that will take millions of dollars to refabricate.

The 747 gifted to the United States, not directly to Donald Trump, was a design that first saw action in 1969. It is old, relatively slow, cumbersome, and must maintain four jet engines. The modern plane is a 777X, not yet flying for any airline. That is the future. That is not what Donald Trump is getting from the Arabs in the Middle East.

The money that the President is so excited to have from his newfound Arab friends will buy more power on American college campuses. They will own American businesses, and it will result in more foreign control over the United States domestic and international policies. The control the Arabs will gain through their “investment” in the United States will be to denigrate and degrade the western traditions that we live by. Let’s be real about this; the Middle Eastern oil rich Arab nations have an agenda, and it is not the same agenda as most Americans hold dear.

Most of the Arab regimes in the Middle East, while sometimes hating each other, have funded terrorism of the most crude variety. The money spent by oil rich nations on various wars in the Middle East, which they had extended to other places in the world, are boundless in their cruelty. Muslim regimes in Northern Africa are destroying Black Christians and Animists throughout central Africa. A 20-year war against Black Christians in African has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and resulted in rapes, that they are too numerous to count. The world does nothing about that and speaks not a word about the cruelty directed to non-Muslims in Africa.

Donald Trump will get a short term shot in the arm from Arab investment in America and its control over our way of life. However, what are the long-term implications of that “deal?” Let us not forget that the money which will be invested in the United States through Trump’s deal making is our money. The Middle Eastern Arabs became unconscionably rich through western purchase of oil. We could have improved nuclear technology and other ways of developing energy resources, but instead we voted to give our money to despotic regimes in the Middle East.

What has Donald Trump not accomplished? He was able to get one American hostage released by Hamas. That is a big deal, but he has not managed to destroy Hamas or get back the hostages taken from Israel, whether Americans or others. He has not stopped the funding of Hamas or other terrorist groups in the Middle East.

The Arabs making deals with President Trump envision an opportunity to destroy Israel and to undermine its robust democracy. The deal making is essentially a one-way street for the Midde Eastern regimes. They get to control America and American industry through their purchases, and America becomes more dependent on those who seek our eventual destruction.

It is hard to believe that Donald Trump does not understand the agenda of the Middle East fundamentalist regimes. They have enriched the Trump family for many years. Clearly, he knows that he has put America on a tightrope from which it is likely to fall. The “Art of the Deal” will result in short term enrichment of a few large companies and total control of the Middle East, and perhaps other parts of the world, by those who have no respect for America, its way of life, its religious diversity, or any of the other values that we hold sacred.

Clifford A. Rieders is a board-certified trial advocate in Williamsport.