WASHINGTON — President Trump continues to resist calls from hundreds of companies to drop tariffs he has placed on foreign goods, arguing that the levies do not impose costs on American companies, despite economic evidence to the contrary.

The Trump administration has been weighing an executive order that would defer tariff payments on some imports, though not cancel the levies outright. But Mr. Trump said Tuesday evening that he had yet to approve the measure, and it was not clear if the administration would ultimately proceed with it.

“That might be, but I’m going to have to approve the plan,” Mr. Trump said of lowering tariffs. He pushed back on news reports that he had made a decision, saying, “I approve everything and they haven’t presented it to me, so therefore it’s false reporting.”

People familiar with the deliberations say the administration has been weighing such a deferral, which would apply to the “most-favored nation” tariffs the United States has long imposed on goods from around the globe, rather than the levies Mr. Trump has imposed on Chinese products or foreign metals.