Trump trade office adds Amazon to ‘notorious markets’ list

United States for first time ded five of Amazon’s overseas operations to its list of “torious markets” where pirated goods are sold. e-commerce giant dismissed move as part of Trump ministration’s “personal vendetta″ against it.

Office of U.S. Tre Representative on Wednesday ded Amazon.com Inc. domains in Cana, France, Germany, India and United Kingdom to its annual blacklist.

USTR cited complaints from U.S. businesses that consumers can’t easily tell who is selling items on Amazon platforms and that e-commerce company’s procedures for removing counterfeit goods “can be lengthy and burdensome.”

Amazon fired back with a statement Wednesday: “We strongly disagree with characterization of Amazon in this USTR report. This purely political act is ar example of ministration using U.S. government to vance a personal vendetta against Amazon.″ Seattle-based company said it has taken aggressive steps to combat counterfeiting.

President Donald Trump has clashed repeatedly with Amazon. company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, also owns Washington Post newspaper, which has written critical stories about Trump and his business dealings.

Amazon sued U.S. Defense Department last year after losing a lucrative cloud computing contract to rival Microsoft. Trump has also said he won’t approve a $10 billion loan to U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically increases rates it charges Amazon and or big shipping companies.

Last October, American Apparel & Footwear Association urged tre representative to d Amazon operations in those five countries to torious markets list. association praised tre office’s decision in a statement Wednesday but did t mention Amazon.

Chinese e-commerce colosses Alibaba Group’s Taobao.com online marketplace also remained on list.

USTR also said Wednesday that Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Venezuela remained on its “priority watch list” of countries that do t equately protect intellectual property. It removed Kuwait from priority list, saying country is updating its intellectual property laws and stepping up enforcement against piracy.