Indian business owners are furious about Amazon's $1 billion expansion into their country and are calling Jeff Bezos an 'economic terrorist'
Jeff Bezos is on a trip in India, and said Wednesday that Amazon plans to invest $1 billion in "digitizing small and medium businesses" in the country.
Bezos also said that a US-India alliance will be the most important alliance of the 21st century.
But not everyone was excited by Amazon's interest in India. Thousands of local shop owners took to the streets to protest Bezos' visit, holding signs that said: "JEFF BEZOS GO BACK."
Protests were held in as many as 300 cities across India, according to the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), one of the trade associations that organized the demonstrations.
Sumit Agarwal of CAIT tweeted that Bezos and Amazon were "foreign economic terrorists & invaders." Protesters also compared Amazon to the East India Company, a British company that colonized India, parts of Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong.
Enough of tolerance! @TEAMCAIT @AimraIndia will fight this battle against foreign economic terrorists & invaders till the very end and bring back peace & prosperity for our 70 million retailers. @narendramodi @rajnathsingh @PiyushGoyal @nsitharaman It’s now time for action! https://t.co/aHpsJJNGt1
— SUMIT AGARWAL (@sumitagarwal_82) January 12, 2020The protesters are concerned that Amazon has used its enormous size to undercut small businesses on price, saying those businesses are unable to compete with the steep discounts that Amazon offers larger sellers.
India's antitrust regulator recently opened an investigation into Amazon and Walmart-owned online retailer Flipkart over this exact issue. It said e-commerce titans like Amazon use their market dominance to price "below cost," making it hard for other businesses to compete.
Amazon has faced similar criticism in Europe, too. Germany's competition watchdog launched an investigation in 2018 into Amazon over the potential abuse of its marketplace platform.
And in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission has reportedly been talking to Amazon's competitors as part of a potential antitrust investigation.
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