U.S. equities sank on Tuesday after President Donald Trump suggested he may want to delay a trade deal with China until after the 2020 presidential election.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 280.23 points, or 1% to 27,502.81. The 30-stock average was led lower by trade-vulnerable Apple, Caterpillar and Boeing. The S&P 500 slid 0.7% to 3,093.20 amid losses in chip stocks like Nvidia, Micron and Advanced Micro Devices. The Nasdaq Composite lost about 0.6% to end the day at 8,520.64.

At its lows of the day, the Dow was down 457.91 points, or 1.7%. The S&P 500 dropped as much as 1.7% while the Nasdaq traded lower by as much as 1.6%.

Stocks hit the lows of their day after Fox News reported that the White House still plans on moving ahead with scheduled Dec. 15 tariffs on Chinese goods notwithstanding recent efforts at a "phase one" trade truce. Tuesday's losses added to a steep decline from the previous session and led to the Dow's third-straight decline.

"In some ways, I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal, but they want to make a deal now and we will see whether or not the deal is going to be right," Trump told reporters earlier on Tuesday.

When asked if he had a deal deadline, he added: "I have no deadline, no ... In some ways, I think it is better to wait until after the election if you want to know the truth."

Some stock of companies with higher-than-average overseas sales exposure underperformed the broader market: Caterpillar slid 2%, Intel dropped 2.8% and Apple lost 1.8%. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, which tracks the performance of major American chipmakers, fell 1.4%.

The president later added that Tuesday's slump is "peanuts" compared to how much the market has climbed since his election and the importance of striking a favorable trade deal with China. Despite describing Tuesday's stock market moves, Trump said he doesn't pay attention to daily equity performance.

"The president's objective always has been to get the right deal independently of when, or anything else like that. So, his objectives haven't changed and if we don't have a deal, he's perfectly happy to continue with the tariffs," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Tuesday.