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Donald Trump said he would press ahead with imposing tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports from Canada and Mexico from Tuesday, adding that there was “no room” for last-minute negotiation.

The president’s comments worsened a market sell-off amid growing fears that the tariffs could damage the US economy and trigger a trade war with America’s largest trading partners.

The S&P 500 share index closed 1.8 per cent lower after its worst session of the year, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6 per cent. Individual stocks fared worse, with chipmaker Nvidia plunging 8.7 per cent and energy group ConocoPhillips down 6.6 per cent.

Trump’s remarks came a day after his commerce secretary Howard Lutnick suggested that the extent and timing of the planned tariffs were still to be finalised, describing the situation as “fluid”.

But at the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump said: “The tariffs, you know, they’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow.”

In response, Canada said it would immediately retaliate with a 25 per cent tariff on $30bn of US imports, and vowed similar action against a further $125bn of US goods 21 days later.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was “no justification” for Trump’s decision. “Our tariffs will remain in place until the US trade action is withdrawn.”

Trump’s announcement on Monday comes after a slew of recent data has raised concerns over the health of the US economy.

On Monday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s running estimate of US GDP growth pointed to a 2.8 per cent fall in the first quarter, a much steeper decline than it had suggested on Friday. Economists attributed the shift in part to uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs.

Washington has for months threatened Mexico and Canada with levies and demanded that they tighten their borders and clamp down on the trafficking of the deadly opioid fentanyl.

Last month, the president issued an executive order applying additional tariffs of 25 per cent to all imports from Canada and Mexico, with the exception of Canadian oil and energy products, which will face a 10 per cent levy. Canada accounts for about 60 per cent of US crude imports.

Days later, Trump postponed the implementation of the tariffs to March 4, following frantic last-minute diplomacy with Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

On Monday, he said tariffs against Canada and Mexico would incentivise the two countries to move more of their manufacturing into the US. “So what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs,” he said.

A White House official also confirmed on Monday that Trump had signed an executive order to raise his level of additional tariffs on Chinese imports from 10 per cent to 20 per cent beginning on Tuesday.

When asked on Monday what the maximum tariffs he would apply against Chinese imports would be, Trump replied: “I can’t say, it depends on what they do with their currency, it depends on what they do in terms of . . . some kind of an economic retaliation.”

Trump added that he did not expect Beijing to “retaliate too much”.

China’s commerce ministry responded that Beijing would take “countermeasures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests”, adding that the US was threatening the global trade system.

“[The US] will not only fail to solve its own problems, but will also undermine China-US economic and trade co-operation and the normal international trade order,” it said.

The president’s remarks on tariffs came after he announced that the world’s biggest chipmaker, Taiwan-based TSMC, would invest $100bn in advanced manufacturing in the US, in the latest business overture to Washington.

Additional reporting by George Steer in New York and Joe Leahy in Beijing