This week, Congress is giving us whiplash. It is expected to pass long-delayed free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia that will provide billions of dollars in new markets for American products and spur job creation at home.

The bad news is that the Senate has just approved an ill-conceived measure that would open the door to massive tariffs on Chinese goods, ostensibly to punish that country for making its exports cheap by artificially keeping its currency low.

This move is particularly ill-timed. With a Greek default and a possible European bank meltdown looming — and Americans still worried about the risk of another dip into recession — the Senate is playing with fire. Luckily, the China-bashing bill probably will die in the House.

Given our own interest rate policy, you could make a good case that Washington itself has been a currency manipulator.

Thanks to the Federal Reserve, U.S. short-term interest rates have been at near-zero levels for about two years. As a result, the dollar has been hammered in foreign exchange markets, although it’s risen a bit of late. Meanwhile, over the last half-dozen years, the Chinese yuan has gone up by nearly 30 percent and China has become our No. 3 export market.

Two years ago, the Obama administration imposed tariffs on Chinese tires. Beijing replied with a tariff on American poultry. Passing a misguided tariff bill would only replicate, on a massive scale, this sort of lose-lose trade-off.