Donald Trump has announced that the US government is freezing new green cards for two months, another strict immigration move he 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.

“Right now, we have to have jobs for Americans,” he told reporters. “We’ve closed down the largest economy in the history of the world.

“They have to work. They need to support their families ... People need money ... We cannot break our country,” he said, contending Americans “want to get back to work” – even though polls out each week show a clear majority of Americans are more concerned with the virus spreading further than getting back to work. Tens of millions of Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since the country went into a near-lockdown last month.

But when one of his coronavirus task force members, Deborah Birx, was asked how hair salons, nail salons and tattoo shops could open up again safely, because those services do not lend themselves to social distancing, she seemed flummoxed.

“If there’s a way that people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things, I don’t know how, but people are very creative,” she said.

Meantime, on the coming immigration order, the president said his move would apply to those seeking green cards; those trying to enter the US temporarily would not be included. Mr Trump said he intends to make the move official on Wednesday, a move that will stop much of the flow of immigrants into the United States. Saying he would review the potential need to extend the freeze in two months, Mr Trump said he would make that decision based on the “economic conditions at that time”, not mentioning the state of the virus.

Mr Trump initially signalled in a late-night tweet on Monday he was planning to shutter the entire US immigration system, but opted against keeping out temporary visitors. He signalled some waivers for “humanitarian” reasons, but offered few other specifics on Tuesday.

“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 in the Monday night tweet.

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 during most of Tuesday.

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

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Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Mr Trump announced that 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”.

Fast food chain Shake Shack, Mr 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.