The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the tariff fight that has broken out between the U.S. and its trading partners does not appear to be rankling Canadian Tire customers as much as chief executive officer Greg Hicks once expected. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe reports that Mr. Hicks said shoppers across the company's banners appear to be coping well with the higher duties he had worried would weigh heavily on spending. "Despite low confidence levels, customers have been and remain more resilient than we anticipated," he told analysts on a conference call Thursday, where he noted even tariff-riddled auto manufacturing communities are showing "no clear signs of softness." That resilience is also reflected in "healthy" spending across all income levels Canadian Tire tracks and contributed to it seeing an 8-per-cent spike in spending on essentials and a 1-per-cent rise in purchases of discretionary goods -- the first increase in this area in three years. Mr. Hicks s rosier-than-expected outlook came as a surprise given he said in February that he was worried that the U.S. tariff threat could substantially erase signs of an economic rebound, if it caused shoppers to cut back on purchases.