Despite its request to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Canada’s Shake and Shingle Alliance was told the country’s shake and shingle industry would not be exempt from U.S. tariffs against softwood lumber, reported Canadian Forest Industries magazine Thursday.
The Alliance asked the Commerce Department in June to review which products would be affected by the duties after the price of shakes and shingles increased suddenly by more than 20 per cent in March.The Alliance argues that its members’ cedar products are thin enough to warrant tariff exemptions and should not be included with lumber, but the Commerce Department says that cedar shakes and shingles are “not outside the scope of the orders” despite being tapered to less than six millimetres.
In its decision, the Commerce Department cited a passage from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wood Handbook. “This excerpt supports the proposition that there is no clear distinction between shake and shingle production and the lumber industry,” according to a 20-page ruling from the Commerce Department’s anti-dumping and countervailing duty operations, The Globe and Mail reports
Bloomberg reports that the results will be most deeply felt in Cape Cod, Mass., where cedar shingles can be found on many homes.