Donald Trump announced the US government is freezing new green cards for two months, another strict immigration move the president said is necessary to "take care of" American workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Trump said during his nightly press conference that he feels it "would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off because of the virus to be replaced" by foreign workers. "We must first take care of the American worker," he said, echoing the "America first" theme of his 2016 campaign and term in office.

The president said his move, expected soon via an executive order, would apply to those seeking green cards; those trying to enter the US temporarily would not be included.

The move represented just the latest climb down my the president from a major policy announcement, even if this one was a partial back down.

Mr Trump announced an initially signalled in a late-night tweet Monday he was planning to shutter the entire US immigration system.

"In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!," the president wrote.

According to a 2018 US Supreme Court ruling, he has the power to do so during a public health emergency. He already has declared a national emergency, but he opted to go with a lesser plan after aides at the White House and several agencies studied the matter most of Tuesday.

The executive order is expected to include waivers for nonimmigrant visas like health care workers and others included in the front lines of the Covid-19 fight or deemed essential to the economy and health of Americans.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Mr Trump announced the president will request that large, publicly traded companies that took funds from the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help small businesses, return those funds.

Mr Trump told reporters he personally will make those asks, and criticised Harvard University, saying they "shouldn't have taken it" because "they have one of the largest endowments in the country, in the world, I guess."

Shake Shack, Mnuchin said, already has agreed to give back monies it took from the small business account.

The Senate earlier on Tuesday passed a measure that will refill the PPP account, and Mr Mnuchin predicted it would be the "last tranche" needed for small businesses -- but that's only the case if the economy bounces back soon.

To that end, Mr Trump announced 20 states, composing around 40 per cent of the US population, have begun steps to open up the economies. But that includes some southern states where the number of confirmed cases continue to rise.

The president, who is eager to get his re-election bid back in high gear with a recovering economy showing promising signs, tried to sound an upbeat message on Tuesday evening -- even as governors across the country criticise the federal response to the outbreak.

"I see light at the end of the tunnel," Mr Trump said. "The light is getting brighter and brighter everyday."

Democratic state chiefs executives, and some Republican governors, however, are still warning they lack the testing kits to safely open their states. Public health officials have said the US needs to test 500,000 people a day to make a reopening assessment, but is only conducting about 150,000 daily.

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