Welcome, I'm Anastasia Glova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

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The current account has a way of upsetting legislators and the record trade

deficit with China has caused many in Congress especially Senators

Charles Schumer and Lindsay Graham to propose drastic protectionist measures to safeguard the American

way of life from the relentless might of China's economy.

Is China a threat to the United States?

Vice President for Academic Affairs James Dorne attempts to

dispel this myth in today's podcast. What is in the bill that Senator Schumer

and Graham have proposed? The Schumer Graham bill basically proposes a unilateral tariff on all Chinese imports of 27.5 percent.

Unless China re-values its currency, the Uwen, by 27.5 percent, over roughly about a two-year period.

This bill is both the unrealistic and dangerous.

It's unrealistic because it's never going to be passed.

It's highly protectionist.

But it's also dangerous because it sends a dangerous

message. What the senators have to realize is that closing China's external markets will

also weaken internal reform. And they don't seem to appreciate that in fact the

senators just recently visited China for the first time they had never seen or

been in China before and they were very impressed with what's going on and they

backed off their proposal but now

they're going to reintroduce it apparently the end of September. And what would be

...