U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Mike Braun (R-IN) introduced the Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act and calls for prohibiting app stores including Apple and Google from carrying any apps that accept purchases in the digital currency. The bill would prohibit app platforms in the United States from using the Chinese Communist Party’s digital yuan (e-CNY) or hosting apps that enable transactions using e-CNY. That would include the popular messaging app WeChat, which announced earlier this year it would support e-CNY .
“It makes no sense to tie ourselves to the digital currency of a genocidal regime that hates us and wants to replace us on the world stage,” said Rubio. “This is a major financial and surveillance risk that the United States cannot afford to make.”
“The Chinese Communist Party will use its digital currency to control and spy on anyone who uses it,” Cotton said. “We can’t give China that chance—the United States should reject China’s attempt to undermine our economy at its most basic level.”
“The Chinese Communist Party’s digital yuan allows direct control and access to the financial lives of individuals. We cannot allow this authoritarian regime to use their state-controlled digital currency as an instrument to infiltrate our economy and the private information of American citizens,” Braun said.
China’s digital currency has raised concerns over safety and privacy issues. During the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, a group of republican lawmakers warned American athletes not to use digital yuan while in China, claiming that it could be tracked by the central bank.
Meanwhile, China has promised “controllable anonymity” that would allow users to keep their transactions anonymous to a “reasonable extent,” according to Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute at the People’s Bank of China.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden announced that he supports the development of a U.S. digital currency. He also said that “cryptocurrencies can be important for the future of the U.S. economy.”
