Washington: A top Republican Senator has reintroduced legislation that would ban American money services businesses from engaging in transactions involving China’s central bank digital currency. 

The proposed “Chinese CBDC Prohibition Act of 2026” would prohibit money services businesses, including payment platforms such as Venmo and Zelle, currency dealers and even the US Postal Service, from using any central bank digital currency issued by the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party, including the digital Yuan.

Introducing the legislation, Senator Rick Scott said the Chinese government was attempting to weaken American global financial leadership through digital currency systems controlled by Beijing.

“The dollar is the reserve currency of the world and the CCP wants to undermine our leadership with a digital currency they can track and manipulate. This is unacceptable for America,” Scott said in a statement announcing the bill.

“The digital Yuan is just another tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on its people and all those who use it. Xi and his thugs have no business playing big brother to American citizens and how they spend their money,” he added.

The bill would amend Title 31 of the United States Code to make it unlawful for any money services business to engage “directly or indirectly” in transactions involving a digital currency issued by China.

According to the text of the legislation, the definition of a money services business would follow existing federal regulations governing financial transactions and currency-related operations.

Scott framed the legislation as both an economic and national security measure. He argued that the use of Chinese digital currency could expose American businesses and consumers to surveillance by Beijing.

“Americans deserve privacy when it comes to their financial transactions and the last thing they need is Communist China spying on them,” Scott said.

The press release accompanying the legislation said the Chinese government currently uses digital currency “as a mechanism to control the lives of its population” and claimed authorities could “cut off access to their accounts at any moment”.

The statement further argued that American businesses using Chinese digital currency could weaken the US dollar, expose entrepreneurs to spying by the Chinese Communist Party and undermine US competitiveness.

China has emerged as one of the world’s leading countries in developing and testing a sovereign digital currency through its digital Yuan project. Beijing has expanded pilot programmes in several cities and has promoted the currency for retail payments and cross-border transactions.

(IANS)