Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has backtracked on his remarks about raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

He said the rich might simply get a smaller tax cut than he originally proposed.

Trump walked away from his comment on Sunday that taxes on the wealthy would “go up” once his broad tax policy proposals, which include tax cuts for rich Americans, were negotiated with Congress.

That appeared to be a break with traditional Republican support for lower taxes in all income brackets.

According to Reuters, Trump said on Monday that he did not mean to imply he was willing to raise taxes for people in higher income brackets from their current level, but was referring to potential adjustments to his own tax policy proposal.

“I may have to increase it on the wealthy – I’m not going to allow it to be increased on the middle class,” Trump said on CNN. “Now, if I increase it on the wealthy, that means they’re still going to be paying less than they are paying now. I’m talking about increasing it from my (original) tax proposal.”

The proposal, released in September, included broad tax breaks for businesses and households, with the highest income tax rate cut to 25 per cent from the current 39.6 per cent.

Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, said on Monday that lowering taxes on the middle class and businesses was his priority.

“I’m not talking about a tax increase. I’m talking about a tremendous tax decrease, OK?” Trump said on the Fox Business Network. He said proposals always change in negotiations with Congress but that he was committed to cutting taxes.