The levies have been a major focus for markets, especially with the expiration of a pause to Trump’s punishing "reciprocal" duties just days away.

Trump administration officials have been carrying out negotiations with a host of nations during the delay, yet the White House has displayed little progress in securing fresh agreements.

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters that he believed India was ready to ink a trade deal with the U.S. that would help American companies and lower the country’s tariffs. India faces an impending 26% levy rate on July 9, when Trump’s reciprocal tariff delay ends.

"Right now, India doesn’t accept anybody in. I think India is going to do that, if they do that, we’re going to have a deal for less, much less tariffs," he said.

However, Trump also hinted that he may not choose to extend the deadline -- and would simply send out letters telling individual nations their tariff rates.

The U.S. economy added more jobs than anticipated in June, in a sign of ongoing resilience in the labor market despite recent concerns over the impact of sweeping tariffs.

Nonfarm payrolls last month rose to 147,000 from an upwardly-revised 144,000, according to a closely-watched report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as job gains in state government and health care were partially offset by declines in the federal workforce. Economists had expected the figure would come in at 111,000.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate decelerated slightly to 4.1%, cooler than estimates of 4.3%. It registered 4.2% in May.

Average hourly earnings growth also eased to 0.2% on a monthly basis, compared with expectations of 0.3% and May’s pace of 0.4%.

Elsewhere, first-time applications for jobless benefits edged down to 233,000 for the week ended on June 28, while continuing claims were unchanged at 1.964 million.

The numbers come as recent indicators have suggested that, while layoffs have been rare, private employers may be becoming more hesitant to hire and workers were more reluctant to quit during a time of widespread economic uncertainty.