Even as the U.S. trade deficit begins to climb out of the red, as the U.S. manufacturing sector grows more efficient, and as the U.S. economy continues to add hundreds of thousands of ne@v jobs, Congess is playing with an economically dangerous loaded gun--protectiomst trade legislation. ne House of Representatives has passed a bill, H.R. 3, which would force the President to erect protectionist barriers against countries ru ing arbitrarily defined "excessive" trade surpluses with the U.S. Economists, liberal and conservative, denounce this as economic suicide. Now the Senate will flirt with protectionism as S. 490 reaches the floor for debate in the coming weeks. ne U.S. trade deficit has fueled much of Congress' drive for trade legislation. These measures in part are aimed at opening foreign markets further to U.S. goods, but they also would close the U.S. market to imports. These bills seriously misunderstand the causes of the U.S. trade imbalance. Foreign protectionism, for example, has relatively little to do with the U.S. trade deficit.