- Republican senators have drafted a bill that would ban China's digital yuan from app stores.
- Apple and Google would be barred from hosting apps that accept digital yuan as a form of payment.
- Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton are two of the bill's sponsors.
Three Republican senators have launched a bill that would ban Apple, Google, and other app store providers from hosting apps that accept China's digital yuan stablecoin as a form of payment.
The bill, which is referred to as the Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act, is sponsored by Florida senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, and Indiana senator Mike Braun.
The digital yuan is a central bank digital currency (CBDC), meaning it's pegged to the Chinese renminbi and issued by the Chinese central bank. It's already used in at least 15 cities after being rolled out at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
This isn't the first time American lawmakers have tried to regulate the digital yuan. In March, US senators Bill Cassidy and Marsha Blackburn proposed the Say No To Silk Road Act, which would require some government agencies to report on the CBDC.
The three senators said the bill is necessary to prevent China surveilling Americans' financial activities.
"The Chinese Communist Party will use its digital currency to control and spy on anyone who uses it," Cotton, who is a proponent of a digital dollar, said. "The United States should reject China's attempt to undermine our economy at its most basic level."
"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," Rubio added. "This is a major financial and surveillance risk that the United States cannot afford to take."