Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday questioned a U.S. government decision to return its customer-to-customer marketplace to a blacklist of "notorious marketplaces."
The comment came after U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on Wednesday announced that it had put Alibaba's Taobao on the 2016 blacklist.
Alibaba said it was "very disappointed" that its Taobao marketplace was put back on the U.S.'s market blacklist, suspecting USTR's action was influenced by the current political climate, according to a statement sent to the Global Times on Thursday.
The company noted that the move ignored Alibaba's work over the past four years, including the creation of a special team to crack down on counterfeit goods in 2015.
USTR has identified notorious markets since 2006, highlighting those reported to be engaging in violations of intellectual property and the sale of counterfeit goods. Taobao was included on the blacklist in 2011, but removed in 2012 because the Chinese e-commerce giant has been working harder to crack down on counterfeit goods on its online marketplaces over the past few years.
