The dynamics of an asymmetric tracer in the symmetric simple exclusion process (SEP) is mapped, in the continuous scaling limit, to the local current through the origin in the zero-range process with a biased bond. This allows us to study the hydrodynamics of the SEP with an asymmetric tracer with a step initial condition, leading to the average displacement as a function of the bias and the densities on both sides. We then derive the cumulant generating function of the process in the high-density limit, by using the macroscopic fluctuation theory and obtain agreement with the microscopic results of Poncet et al (2021). For more general initial conditions, we show that the tracer variance in the high-density limit depends only on the generalized susceptibility in the initial condition.