September 5, 2018 

Submitted via regulations.gov

Ambassador Robert E. Lighthizer 

U.S. Trade Representative 

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative 

600 17th Street NW 

Washington, DC 20508 

RE: Request To Consider Requests for Exclusion of Particular Products From the 

Determination of Action Pursuant to Section 301: China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices 

Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation (USTR-2018-0025) 

Dear Ambassador Lighthizer: 

GHL International, Inc. (“GHL”) and Pioneer Pet Products, LLC (“Pioneer Pet”) hereby submit 

this request to exclude items under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (“HTS”) 

subheading 8413810040 from the additional ad valorem duty of 25 percent on approximately 

$34 billion worth of Chinese imports.49

GHL is a 29-year-old company registered in 1989 in the State of Wisconsin as an S corporation 

with approximately 350 employees, 50 employees are in the U.S. with the remainder located in 

China. GHL is the parent corporation of multiple wholly-owned subsidiaries in the U.S. and 

China and holds interest in additional affiliates. GHL supplies products across the globe 

originating from both the U.S. and China. An example would be components for the high speed 

trains in China manufactured at one of our wholly owned facilities in China. 

GHL owns more than 100 active patents registered around the world. These patents are assigned 

only to the U.S.-based companies and cover technologies such as: 

• Furniture, 

• LED and HID lighting, 

• Various pet products, 

 

49 Notice of Action and Request for Public Comment Concerning Proposed Determination of Action Pursuant to\ 

Section 301: China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and 

Innovation, 83 Fed. Reg. 28710 (Jun. 20, 2018). 
2

• Protein grinding for human consumption and pet food, and

• Starch chemistry supporting cat litter, fermentation, and waste oil/chemical clean up.

Our core strength is in our multiple company diversity, each having different core engineering 

and marketing skills. Separately, each company has its own strengths and can stand alone in its 

market. Pioneer Pet is a wholly owned subsidiary of GHL. 

Pioneer Pet is a small business headquartered in Cedarburg, Wisconsin with a long history of 

manufacturing and supplying a wide variety of pet products to U.S. consumers. Our legacy dates 

back to the 1990s when our founder, Betsy Lipscomb, began making cat scratching posts by 

gathering wooden fence posts from her farm in Wisconsin. We started a company whose sole 

mission was to enhance the quality of our pets’ lives, by providing for their behavioral needs. 

From these humble beginnings, we have grown our business with a sole mission in mind, to 

provide superior products that will improve the quality of life for pets and their owners. 

Pioneer Pet employs 38 employees in the U.S. Our company is one of the U.S.’s primary 

suppliers of specialty pet products and we are dedicated to providing our customers with 

solutions for their pet behavior needs. From cat scratching posts to pet water fountains, from pet 

feeder to specialty litter, our business provides U.S. and international (including China) 

consumers solution-based products to tame pet’s bad behaviors in the home without taking away 

their natural instincts. Our historical core expertise has been hard goods such as cat furniture, 

litter boxes, pet toys, accessories, pet drinking fountains, feeders and training products. Our 

Ultimate Scratching Post is the bestselling scratching post on Amazon.com. Our pet fountains 

are also leaders in the pet industry. We do all the private branding for a major pet retailer’s pet 

fountains. We are proud that our business is a leader in the U.S. industry and helps serve millions 

of U.S. consumers. 

LXV. Product Description

We request that USTR exclude Cat Fountain that is imported under HTS subheading 

8413810040. 

Item: Cat Fountain 

HTS subheading: 8413810040 

Item Description: This plastic fountain (blue or white) delivers a continuous, trickling flow of 

filtered water. The fountain includes an adjustable knob used to control the flow rate and an 

impeller/pump that circulates the water through a charcoal filter that removes bad tastes and 

odors, thus providing clean, fresh water. Its falling stream continually aerates the water with 

healthful oxygen. The essential character of the fountain is imparted by the pump. 

Material(s): Plastic 

Item Size (inches): 4 H x 8.5 W x 10.25 D 

Item Weight (pounds): 1.6 
3

LXVI. Pioneer Pet Cannot Source Cat Fountain From Countries Outside Of China. 

Cat Fountain and comparable products are not available in the U.S. or countries outside of China. 

While we have explored the possibility of sourcing these products from other countries, there are 

no alternative manufacturers of Cat Fountain. 

There are currently no U.S.-based sources that manufacture Cat Fountain. Developing the 

necessary manufacturing capacity within America is technically and economically infeasible in 

the short term to maintain our current supply of Cat Fountain and continue to meet the needs of 

U.S. pet owners. In sum, shifting to a non-Chinese source for these products is not a viable 

option at this time. 

The additional 25 percent ad valorem tariff would severely disrupt our entire engineering and 

manufacturing processes and ability to supply our U.S. customers. Cat Fountain is 

 in Changsha, China, a company that GHL has a . Our 

ownership interest in did not come about due to any Chinese government policy; instead we 

made the decision to invest to gain better control of our supply chain and the quality of our 

products. Additionally, the profits that GHL makes from its relationship with do not remain 

in China, but instead end up in the U.S. for GHL’s use and investment. 

We have had a business relationship with for over seventeen years. is a plastic 

injection molding company with expertise focused not only on the molding but also the 

engineering associated with assemblies and retail-ready shelf products for our Pioneer Pet 

furniture, fountains, litter accessories, and electronic toys. Where appropriate uses GHL 

design and utility patents and intellectual property to make our products, but has no 

ownership in those patents and associated intellectual property. is also Pioneer Pet’s 

licensed distributor of pet products in China. Because of our ownership interest in the 25 

percent tariff on this Cat Fountain causes additional harm to GHL and Pioneer Pet by potentially 

requiring us move our supply chain to outside of China, instead using our own manufacturing 

facility. However, to reiterate, we have been unable to identify a source of our product from any 

other manufacturers outside of China or within the U.S. Thus, the tariff will harm U.S. based 

interests instead of harming solely Chinese based interests, while reducing our ability to bring 

home profits of our goods manufactured at 

LXVII. The Imposition of this Duty on Cat Fountain Has a Significant Impact on 

Pioneer Pet’s Business, Resulting in a Loss of of Our Profits and 

Reduction of Pioneer Pet’s Workforce of 38 Employees. 

As you can tell from the below information, we import a significant amount of Cat Fountain 

from China and imposition of this duty will negatively impact our business. 

Year Value (dollars) Quantity (units)
4

The imposition of this tariff on Cat Fountain would cause severe economic harm to Pioneer Pet, 

GHL, its customers, and U.S. pet owners. Specifically for Pioneer Pet, the cumulative impact of 

these tariffs will eliminate our profits and cause significant damage to GHL as 

Pioneer Pet makes up of GHL’s profits. This product is one of our top selling items 

and is a large margin of our sales as well as contributes to the overall financial stability of our 

company. This increased tariff has impacted our ability to provide Cat Fountain at a competitive 

price to our customer supply chains. The tariff will need to be passed on to our customers who 

will pass it onto U.S. pet owners, impacting approximately 1.5 million Americans. 

Because these tariffs are currently imposed on our products we have had to lay off some of 

Pioneer Pet’s 38 employees in order to keep our fixed costs down. If the tariffs continue to be 

imposed on Cat Fountain we will be forced to lay off even more employees. 

Additionally, the tariffs will prevent GHL from making any major capital investments in our 

products and our future. For example, Pioneer Pet’s fastest growing product line is its all natural 

litter products made from sorghum. We have been exploring opportunities to expand our 

relationships with U.S. farmers to increase sorghum and wheat acreage that we can purchase for 

our litter. We currently purchase in excess of 10,000,000 pounds of farm product with a growing 

export market of our sorghum litter that will be put in jeopardy from these tariffs. To support this 

increased sorghum supply, GHL would need to build a new storage facility and automatic filler. 

However, because these tariffs will significantly impede our company’s growth and reduce any 

capital that could be used to fund these projects, GHL will not be able to support U.S. sorghum 

farmers and add jobs to GHL for this additional business. 

LXVIII. Including Cat Fountain in the Tariff Will Not Be Effective in Eliminating 

China’s Predatory Acts. 

USTR’s Section 301 report found that various policies and practices of the Chinese government 

are designed to promote Chinese companies as leaders in supplying certain advanced 

technologies around the world and to reduce imports of these technologies that Chinese 

industries rely upon. According to USTR and the White House’s Office of Trade and 

Manufacturing policy, China has participated in physical and cyber-enabled theft of 

technologies, required technology transfer for market access, and investment restrictions, among 

other coercive and intrusive restrictions that harm American intellectual property rights, 

innovation, and technology development.50

According to the various Section 301 reports, the technologies that China targets through its 

policies are advanced technologies in the following industries: (1) advanced information 

technology; (2) robotics and automated machine tools; (3) aircraft and aircraft components; (4) 

maritime vessels and marine engineering equipment; (5) advanced rail equipment; (6) new 

energy vehicles; (7) electrical generation and transmission equipment; (8) agricultural machinery 

 

50 USTR, Findings of the Investigation Into China’s Acts, Policies, And Practices Related to Technology Transfer, 

Intellectual Property, and Innovation Under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 1–2 (Mar. 22, 2018) [hereinafter 

Section 301 Findings]; Office of Trace and Manufacturing Policy, Executive Office of the President, How China’s 

Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and World (Jun. 

2018) [hereinafter China’s Economic Aggression]. 
5

and equipment; (9) new materials; and (10) pharmaceuticals and advanced medical devices.51

Notably, Cat Fountain and its manufacture are not among the list of advanced technologies or 

industries that are targeted by the Chinese government policies. 

Additionally, there is no evidence that the production of Cat Fountain in China has been a target 

of the aggressive trade and investment practices outlined in the reports. In fact, the Cat Fountain 

manufacturing industry in China has developed independent of these practices due to lower 

labor, raw material and manufacturing costs. There also has not been forced technology transfer. 

To the contrary, Pioneer Pet holds the intellectual property right to the Cat Fountain that our 

Chinese manufacturing partner produces for us and has supported with their engineering 

expertise. 

This Cat Fountain has been in the pet market and in the homes of Americans for many years and 

does not contain sensitive technology or intellectual property that is the target of China’s 

practices. In fact, Pioneer Pet has been sourcing these products from our Chinese partners for the 

last 17 years and has not experienced these challenges. To the contrary, Pioneer Pet has enjoyed 

a constructive relationship with its Chinese partners and has not encountered any of the 

intellectual property theft, cyber theft, or other technology-related compilations that advanced 

technology industries have faced. In sum, our importation of the Cat Fountain from China is not 

linked to any purportedly unfair practices. Imposing punitive tariffs on our imports, therefore, 

would not advance the stated objectives of the Section 301 proceeding. 

Due to these factors, we believe that targeting these tariffs on Cat Fountain is misplaced and will 

not curb China’s predatory policies, and instead negatively impact U.S. pet owners. 

 

51 Section 301 Findings, at 14. 
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* * *

GHL and Pioneer Pet appreciate the opportunity to request this exemption from the Section 301 

tariffs. While we understand and support the motivation for fair trade policies and a level playing 

field, we respectfully request that Cat Fountain imported from China under HTS 8413810040 be 

exempt from the additional 25 percent ad valorem duty because it will not accomplish the 

desired purpose and will have a significant detrimental impact on Pioneer Pet and GHL, the 

business we supply, and millions of U.S. pet owners. 

Respectfully submitted, 

John Lipscomb 

President 

GHL International, Inc.