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HOUSTON — Mexico beat the United States 2-1 on Sunday night for its record 10th CONCACAF Gold Cup title, with Edson Álvarez scoring a tiebreaking goal in the 77th minute after a video review reversed an offside call.

Chris Richards put the U.S. ahead in the fourth minute, heading in a Sebastian Berhalter free kick for the second time in the tournament, but Raúl Jiménez tied the score in the 27th with his third goal of this Gold Cup.

Mexico was awarded the free kick when Diego Luna fouled Alexis Vega on a flank. Johan Vásquez flicked the restart across the goal mouth and Álvarez burst past the defense, redirecting the ball from 3 yards just inside Matt Freese’s far post. While the play was initially called offside, the goal was awarded by the VAR, and Mexico defended its title from 2023 while improving to 6-2 in Gold Cup finals against the U.S.

Patrick Agyemang had a chance two minutes into stoppage time, but he didn’t make good contact on his short-range shot that was blocked by goalkeeper Luis Malagón.

A sellout crowd of 70,925 at NRG Stadium was about 70% pro-Mexico and booed U.S. players when they walked out for pregame warmups. Mexico dominated with 60% possession and had 12 corner kicks to none for the Americans.

This was the last competitive match for the U.S. and Mexico before co-hosting next year’s World Cup with Canada.

The U.S., which has seven Gold Cup titles but none since 2021, used a starting lineup with only a handful of players currently projected as World Cup starters, missing regulars due to vacation, injuries and the Club World Cup.

Coach Mauricio Pochettino used their absence to evaluate players who could push for starting jobs during the friendlies this fall and next spring, and Luna and Agyemang emerged as contenders for World Cup roster spots.

Richards put the U.S. in front when he headed Berhalter’s free kick from about 40 yards off the crossbar. The ball bounced straight down and just crossed the goal line.

Jiménez scored his 42nd international goal, third-most in Mexican history. He burst past the defense and one-timed the pass from Marcel Ruiz, beating Freese from about 10 yards on a shot that might have nicked defender Tim Ream.

Jiménez celebrated by grabbing a Mexico No. 20 jersey with “DIOGO J” in honor of Diogo Jota, his former Wolverhampton teammate who died in a car crash Thursday in Spain. Jiménez ran to a corner, sat down with the jersey and mimicked playing a video game.

Fatal floods in Texas that left thousands scrambling for safety with little warning have sparked a fresh round of scrutiny on Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service.

At least 79 people are dead and many others missing as of Sunday evening, after floodwaters suddenly surged through Texas Hill Country, an area known as “flash flood alley.”

Within hours of the early Friday morning deluge, some Texas officials were critical of the NWS, saying that forecasts underestimated the rainfall. Rep. Jack Kimble, D-Calif., on Saturday posted on X a tongue-in-cheek critique of NWS cuts in response to a post from Vice President J.D. Vance. On Sunday President Donald Trump rejected the idea of investigating whether NWS cuts had left key vacancies, and the White House said claims that NWS cuts had anything to do with the tragedy were “disgusting.”

Independent meteorologists and a former NWS official said that warnings issued in the run-up to this weekend’s flooding were about as timely and accurate as could be expected with the weather data available in real time. Predicting extreme rainfall and flash flooding beyond several hours is challenging, they said, and it’s also not easy to ensure urgent warnings reach those most at risk.

“The forecasting was good. The warnings were good. It’s always about getting people to receive the message,” said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist based in Wisconsin. “It appears that is one of the biggest contributors — that last mile.”

The meteorologists said they did not think understaffed offices were a primary factor in the tragic outcome, even though NWS has leadership gaps after a rash of staffing cuts.

Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union that represents government employees, said the San Antonio weather forecasting office did not have two of its top positions filled — a permanent science officer (a role that does training and is in charge of implementing new technology) or a warning coordination meteorologist (which coordinates with media and is the public face of the office), though there are employees acting in those leadership roles. Overall, Fahy said the offices were adequately staffed with meteorologists to respond to the event.

“The WFOs [weather forecasting offices] had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm,” Fahy said on Saturday, but added that he was concerned about the unfilled senior positions and vacuums of leadership.

In a statement, the National Weather Service said it was “heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County.” The agency did not address questions about staffing but provided a detailed timeline of the warnings it sent out.

Some Texas officials have suggested the National Weather Center forecast didn’t convey the storm’s threat while others said they were grateful for timely alerts from the agency.

“The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted three to six inches of rain in the Concho Valley and four to eight inches of rain in the hill country,” said Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd at a press conference Friday. “The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts nonetheless.”

The National Water Center indicated Kerrville, Texas and its surrounding areas could be at risk of flash flooding on Thursday, July 3, according to a timeline provided by the National Weather Service. Then, NWS Austin/San Antonio issued a flood watch at 1:18 PM on Thursday continuing into Friday morning. The office issued its urgent flash flood warnings at 1:14 a.m. for Kerr County.

Travis County Judge Andy Brown thanked the National Weather Service for its alerts. Eric Carter, the county’s chief emergency management coordinator, described the service as being “very proactive in their warnings.”

The agency noted that it sent out a flash flood warning with a tags of “considerable” or “catastrophic” at 1:14 a.m. CT on Friday, which would trigger ​​wireless emergency alerts on enabled mobile devices.

“Flash Flood Warnings were issued on the night of July 3 and in the early morning of July 4, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours…,” the statement said.

The concern over staffing and performance comes after the Trump administration this spring laid off National Weather Service employees and also offered buyouts and early retirements. By early June, the National Weather Service had lost about 600 employees. Many veteran NWS workers left the agency, along with employees on probation and those recently hired or promoted.

Some NWS offices have seen staffing reductions of more than 40%, and the agency has scrambled to fill critical roles at some forecasting offices. At least eight offices stopped operating 24 hours a day this spring as a result and some have suspended weather balloon launches.

In May, more than 40% of the nation’s weather forecasting offices had staffing vacancy rates above 20%. The cuts prompted all of the living former directors of NWS to write a letter expressing concerns over staffing levels and future budget cuts.

“Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that’s a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines—and by the people who depend on their efforts,” they wrote.

Compared to many forecasting offices across the country, the Texas offices remain relatively well-staffed.

Fahy said the San Antonio/Austin weather forecasting office is operating with 11 staff meteorologists and is down six employees from its typical full staffing level of 26. He also noted that the nearby San Angelo office, which issued warnings for portions of central Texas, is short four staff members from its usual staffing level of 23. The meteorologist-in-charge position — the office’s top leadership position — is not permanently filled. The office is also without a senior hydrologist.

“In San Angelo, there is no hydrologist, and that’s a problem,” Fahy said. Hydrologists analyze stream flow and play a key role in flood response.

Dalton Rice, city manager of Kerrville, said the city will look at whether its own emergency notifications were robust enough to warn residents.

“We know questions are being asked about the emergency notification, and while it is not the time to speculate, local and regional partners are committed to a full review of the events and systems in place,” Rice said in a news conference Sunday. “At the appropriate time, we will take clear steps to strengthen our future preparedness. We owe that commitment to the families who are suffering and every member of our community.”

Prominent independent meteorologists who have been critical of NWS staffing and budget cuts in the past have said federal meteorologists on the ground issued timely warnings.

Alan Gerard, the former director of the analysis and understanding branch at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, wrote in a blog post that the Austin/San Antonio forecasting office did a good job communicating the risks as quickly as possible, despite the unfilled leadership positions.

“Obviously, having both of these positions vacant for a prolonged time is not optimal, and certainly could have had negative impacts at some level,” Gerard wrote. “However, just looking at the actual warning services that NWS provided during the event, they were solid and provided the level of warning and alerts that the public should expect to receive for an event such as this.”

Matt Lanza, a Houston-based meteorologist, said there were no initial indications that staffing levels or budget cuts played a role in the tragedy.

Vagasky, the Wisconsin meteorologist, said predicting flash flooding and extreme rainfall is notoriously difficult.

“Quantitative precipitation forecasting, called QPF, is one of the hardest things meteorologists have to do. You have to get the right location, the right amount, the right timing,” Vagasky said. “They were aware this was a significant event and they were messaging that.”

Vagasky said the remnants of tropical storm Barry moved into Texas and fed tropical moisture to severe thunderstorms, which stalled out over central Texas and pummeled the region with extreme precipitation.

He added that the cadence by which forecasters indicated increasing concern fit with what weather models were showing and what he would expect.

The Texas Hill Country is often called “flash flood alley” because its topography can funnel and quickly swell rivers. Knowing precisely where the rain will fall is key for hydrologic models to understand where flood impacts would be worse.

“The forecasts this week were for 4-7, 5-9 inches of rain, somewhere in there. And some models were showing higher amounts on top of that. Knowing — is that higher amount going to fall three miles this way or three miles that way? — has a big impact on what the ultimate results are,” Vagasky said. “Unfortunately, the science just isn’t at that point where you can say, ‘Ok, I know at this specific latitude and longitude, we’re going to get this much rain.’”

The overnight timing of the heaviest rainfall and the floodwaters beginning to rise is a nightmare scenario for forecasters, Vagasky said.

“Severe weather response in the middle of the night is one of the biggest challenges. That’s when we see the most tornado fatalities and the most flooding fatalities. People are asleep. They can’t see the tornado or the water rising,” Vagasky said. “Did people have their emergency alerts turned on on their phones?”

Vagasky, who has been critical of staffing reductions and cuts to weather balloon releases at the National Weather Service, said he did not think better staffing would have prevented the tragedy.

“Those are important positions that do need to be filled,” he said, adding that it “probably wasn’t a significant contributor to what happened.”

Vagasky said there is plenty of room for improvement of quantitative precipitation forecasting that could help forecasters identify threats earlier. Such research is at risk if the administration cuts NOAA’s funding as it has outlined, he said.

“The big concern is the latest budget request, if it goes through Congress the way the administration wants, it shuts down all the NOAA research labs, which are the labs doing the work to improve that forecasting.”

In Barrio Obrero, a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in Puerto Rico, the chilling effect of unprecedented immigration raids in the U.S. territory has been paralyzing.

With homes and businesses desolate, a truck with speakers has been cruising through the streets of the working-class neighborhood with a message.

“Suddenly, in that darkness, they heard: ‘Immigrants, you have rights,’” Ariadna Godreau, a human rights lawyer in Puerto Rico, told NBC News.

The legal nonprofit she leads, Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, hired the truck, known as a “tumba coco,” to make people aware of their rights and announce the launch of a new hotline, the first in Puerto Rico providing legal support to immigrants, Godreau said.

Over 300 families have already called the hotline and spoken with attorneys free of charge as they figure out their legal options in the face of a changing immigration landscape, Godreau said.

Residents in Puerto Rico now fear that President Donald Trump’s efforts to carry out mass deportations will fundamentally change how immigration policies are enforced in a U.S. territory that had long been perceived as a sanctuary for immigrants.

That perception was first shattered on Jan. 27, the same week Trump took office. Immigration authorities raided Barrio Obrero and arrested more than 40 people. Witnesses told Telemundo Puerto Rico, NBC’s sister station on the island, that they saw agents break down the doors of several homes and businesses. Detainees were handcuffed, placed in vans and taken away, they said.

In his 40 years living in Puerto Rico, Ramón Muñoz, a Dominican immigrant, had seen authorities sporadically detain undocumented people but never “with the aggressiveness” displayed during that raid.

Complicating matters for immigrants in Puerto Rico, those detained are transferred to the mainland U.S. — an ocean away from their families and attorneys managing their immigration cases — because there are no permanent detention centers on the island that can hold detainees for prolonged periods, according to Rebecca González-Ramos, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Juan.

A ‘nightmare’ amid racial profiling concerns

Aracely Terrero, one of the at least 732 immigrants arrested by federal immigration authorities in Puerto Rico so far this year, spent a month being bounced around three different detention centers in the States before she was released last week after an immigration judge determined she should have never been detained in the first place.

A local police officer in the coastal town of Cabo Rojo alerted federal immigration authorities about Terrero after the officer found her selling ice cream at the beach without business permits, Telemundo Puerto Rico reported.

Terrero had a visa and was in the process of obtaining a green card when she was taken into immigration custody, her attorney Ángel Robles and Annette Martínez, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, told NBC News.

Local policies in Puerto Rico limit coordination between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, Martínez said.

Yet the ACLU in Puerto Rico is seeing more cases in which local police are suspected of racially profiling Dominican immigrants with the purposes of alerting federal immigration authorities, reigniting concerns about the revival of “discriminatory policing practices” that led to police reforms in Puerto Rico a decade ago, Martínez said.

Terrero’s case also spotlighted how difficult it is for families and attorneys to keep track of detainees once they are sent to the States, Martínez added.

“It was a nightmare,” Terrero told Telemundo Puerto Rico following her release. “It was a very difficult journey because I’d never been arrested in my life. I’d never seen myself like this, with handcuffs, like a criminal.”

A raid changes everything

González-Ramos, the HSI special agent, said in a local radio interview last week that her office had been preparing to ramp up immigration enforcement efforts in Puerto Rico since November. She said they started “reorganizing” resources and “shifting priorities” after Trump’s win.

Yet the big raid on Jan. 27 came as a surprise to most people. Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón had reassured immigrants in an interview with Telemundo Puerto Rico that same week that Trump was only “focused on what’s happening in Mexico and in the United States, on that border.”

It helped create a “​​false sense of security,” Godreau said. “These consecutive raids then begin in areas historically inhabited by the Dominican population.”

As immigration authorities escalate their efforts in Puerto Rico by raiding hotels, construction sites and neighborhoods, more than 500 of the immigrants arrested so far are from the Dominican Republic.

Dominicans make up the biggest share of Puerto Rico’s immigrant population. Over 100,000 Dominicans are estimated to live in Puerto Rico. About a third are thought to be undocumented. Many of them are business owners or work hospitality, construction and elder care jobs, the last two being industries grappling with labor shortages, Godreau and Martínez said.

González-Ramos had said her office would be detaining people illegally present in Puerto Rico, “specifically those whose criminal records pose a threat to our communities and national security.”

But only 13% of the 732 immigrants arrested this year have a criminal record, according to data from Homeland Security Investigations in San Juan.

Following a subpoena from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the administration of González-Colón, a Republican who supports Trump, recently handed over the names and addresses of 6,000 people who got driver’s licenses under an immigrant-friendly law from 2013 that allowed people without legal immigration status to get them.

González-Colón has said she won’t challenge Trump’s immigration policies so as not to risk losing federal funding.

“The governor’s attitudes and expressions have been quite misleading,” Martínez said, adding that local jurisdictions frequently challenge and oppose federal policies in an effort to protect local residents.

Nowhere to be detained

A spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations in San Juan told NBC News that González-Ramos was not available for an interview this week. But in her local radio interview last week, González-Ramos said immigration agents periodically carry out “daily interventions” in an effort to find over 1,200 people who have final deportation orders “that we must execute.”

Everyone arrested in raids, regardless of whether they have final orders of deportation or not, “must be detained, no matter what,” González-Ramos said in Spanish. “Right now, those are the instructions.”

The ACLU’s Martínez said that in Puerto Rico, immigration arrests have an “aggravating factor”: Those immigrants arrested are put on a plane and sent away to detention centers in the mainland U.S.

For more than a decade, the island has lacked a working immigration detention center that can permanently house detainees.

As immigration arrests ramp up, “temporary detention centers” have sprouted across Puerto Rico, according to González-Ramos.

One of them is in a federal General Services Administration building in Guaynabo. Equipped with almost 20 beds, it’s been nicknamed “la neverita,” or the icebox, by immigrants who have spent time there before being transferred to the U.S.

An old ICE facility in Aguadilla that shuttered in 2012 was recently reopened to temporarily hold detainees, according to Godreau and Martínez, who have heard from immigrants taken there.

Before its closure over a decade ago, “complaints were made at the time about the inhumane and inadequate conditions in which detainees in that center were held,” Martínez said in Spanish.

Mayor Julio Roldán approved an ordinance Thursday to declare Aguadilla a “sanctuary city” for immigrants in response to escalated enforcement efforts in the area.

When at least two dozen detainees are at the temporary holding facilities, ICE planes come to Puerto Rico to transport them to permanent detention centers in different states, according to González-Ramos.

Many of them are placed in immigration detention centers in Florida and Texas. But detainees from Puerto Rico have also been found in facilities in Louisiana and New Mexico.

“We’re seeing a pattern of disappearances,” Martínez said, pointing out that in Terrero’s case, it took the ACLU and her attorney weeks to find out where she was being held.

The situation raises concerns over “multiple violations of human rights and civil rights,” Martínez said, adding that the ACLU is continuing to monitor these cases and call for changes in local policies to ensure immigrants’ rights are protected.

Catastrophic flooding struck central Texas on Friday, causing a surge of 20 to 26 feet on the Guadalupe River near Kerrville, leading to widespread damage and washing out roads.

Dozens of people were killed over the weekend; the death toll at 5 p.m. ET Sunday was 79 across six counties. In Kerr County, officials reported 68 deaths — including those of 28 children — and 11 children were still missing from Camp Mystic.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service extended the flood watch over much of south-central Texas as several inches of rain fell on the region.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County. The declaration will allow first responders to have access to the resources they need as they continue search and recovery efforts.

• Were the warnings adequate? Critics blamed recent cuts by the Trump administration for damaging officials’ ability to properly warn residents about incoming flood conditions. A White House spokesperson pushed back against the claims, telling NBC News the accusations were “disgusting” lies to target political opponents. On Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also was challenged about whether the federal government did enough to warn Texans.
• ‘I had to swim through the window’: The flash floods left residents to escape through rising waters with nothing but their lives.
• Hoping for a miracle: Xavier Ramirez’s family had been at a campground when the waters began to quickly rise, leaving five of his family members missing.

Trump signs ‘big, beautiful bill’ into law

Trump on Friday signed into law his sweeping tax cut and spending package, which he has called the “big, beautiful bill,” in a Fourth of July ceremony packed with patriotic pomp and symbolism.

The White House ceremony took place alongside a military picnic. It included an armed forces flyover, and it was attended by jubilant Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, who helped muscle the legislation through the House by a razor-thin margin.

“Our country has had so much to celebrate this Independence Day as we enter our 249th year. America’s winning, winning, winning like never before,” Trump said before he signed the bill.

In getting his sweeping domestic agenda passed, Trump displayed a mastery over his party that many of his predecessors would have envied.

Politics in brief

• Deep freeze: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth halted a weapons shipment for Ukraine despite military analysis that the aid wouldn’t jeopardize U.S. readiness, blindsiding the State Department, Ukraine, European allies and members of Congress, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.
• Shaken, not stirred: GOP Sen. Thom Tillis’ surprise retirement announcement has shaken up not only North Carolina’s Senate race, but also the broader fight for the majority in the Senate heading into next year’s midterm elections.
• Another goodbye: Centrist Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, said he doesn’t have the “hunger” for another grueling re-election campaign and won’t run for a sixth term next year.
• Tinker to Evers to … chance? In Wisconsin, one of the country’s most closely divided battleground states, there’s one big question on both parties’ minds: Is Gov. Tony Evers going to run for a third term next year?
• The Octagon vs. the Ellipse: UFC plans to host a fight card on the White House grounds, a spokesperson for the promotion confirmed to NBC News.

The ‘Prince of Darkness’ rises again

Ozzy Osbourne rose from beneath the stage on a leather throne adorned with a bat and two diamond-eyed skulls. It was part rock ’n’ roll theater, part medical necessity. At 76, the “Prince of Darkness” has Parkinson’s disease, his spine is held together with screws and plates, and his ailing voice sometimes struggles for pitch.

But this was an emotional display of bloody-minded defiance.

On Saturday night in Birmingham, England, Osbourne forced his battered body through the final concert of his band, Black Sabbath, the godfathers of heavy metal formed in 1968. It capped a 10-hour marathon featuring the biggest names in hard rock, from Metallica and Guns N’ Roses to supergroups packed with A-listers from Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine, the Smashing Pumpkins and even Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones.

• The heavy metal masters weren’t the only British band to make a return. Oasis, who split up in 2009, returned from their 16-year hiatus with a show in Cardiff, Wales.

Housebuilding hammered by tariff uncertainty

The total cost of building a mid-range single-family home could rise by more than $4,000 as a result of Trump’s tariffs, an NBC News analysis of building materials shows — an estimate that industry experts who reviewed the analysis called conservative.

Products from China, Mexico and Canada — which are tariffed at high rates — are responsible for the largest projected cost increases, calculated using a weighted tariff rate for each item based on the share of imports from each country.

Materials primarily imported from China would add $1,708 to per-home costs, Canadian products would contribute $1,300, and Mexican imports would add $981.

Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, said the tariffs have an impact beyond their direct cost as they send uncertainty rippling through the supply chain and leave builders unsure how to plan for the future.

“About three-quarters of homebuilders right now are having difficulty pricing their homes for buyers because of uncertainty due to construction input costs,” Dietz said.

Notable quote

If you’re going to cancel an international trip, it’s not going to be because of the dollar.

Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate

Traveling to Europe is getting cheaper — kind of. Flight prices might be going down, but everything is more expensive once you get there as a weaker dollar takes a bite out of Americans’ budgets abroad and global economic uncertainty looms over travel.

In case you missed it

• Actor Julian McMahon, who was known for playing Dr. Doom in the early-2000s “Fantastic Four” movies and starring in fan-favorite shows including “Nip/Tuck” and “Charmed,” died of cancer at 56.
• Human remains were found at the site of a massive fireworks warehouse explosion that detonated in Northern California, officials said.
• The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, turned 90 after a week of celebrations by followers, during which he riled China again and spoke about his hope to live beyond 130 and reincarnate after he dies.
• Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a public appearance, the first time he has been seen amid conflict Israel and the United States.
• Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk and several teammates gathered in Portugal to attend the funeral of Diogo Jota and his brother, André Silva, who died in a tragic car crash.
• Famed competitive eater Joey Chestnut reclaimed his title at the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest after he skipped last year’s gastronomic battle in New York for the coveted Mustard Belt.
• The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said two U.S. security workers were injured in a targeted attack at a food distribution site in Gaza.

NBC News modeled out a 3-bedroom home and found tariffs added more than $4,000 to total costs.

By Alex Ford and Jiachuan Wu

July 6, 2025

Lumber from Canada? That will be another $534.

Major appliances from China? Add a cool $445.

New homes in the United States are set to get more expensive thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, which is expected to raise the costs of a wide variety of materials that go into building houses.

An NBC News analysis of building materials and import data found that the total cost of building a mid-range single-family home could rise by more than $4,000 — an estimate that industry experts who reviewed the analysis called conservative. An April survey from the National Association of Home Builders estimated tariff impacts at $10,900 per home. Neither analysis included labor costs.

Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, said the tariffs have an impact beyond their direct cost as they send uncertainty rippling through the supply chain and leave builders unsure how to plan for the future.

“About three-quarters of home builders right now are having difficulty pricing their homes for buyers because of uncertainty due to construction input costs,” Dietz said.

The United States remains in a housing shortage that has driven up costs. The NBC News Home Buyer Index, which measures how difficult a local housing market is, has remained at an extreme difficulty level for more than two years. And conversations about how to encourage building more housing has become a major part of U.S. political discussions, especially among some Democrats.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to pursue an aggressive tariff agenda while promising that the United States would sign trade deals, most of which have yet to materialize.

Whether tariffs are implemented, paused or reversed, the timeline for cost impacts will vary significantly across suppliers, materials and regions. Dietz said that while some suppliers may initially absorb parts of tariff costs, “generally speaking, in the long run, you would expect consumers to pay most of the tariff.”

NBC News modeled the cost of materials for an 1,800 square-foot single-family house and then analyzed import and survey data from the U.S. Trade Commission and the Census Bureau’s annual manufacturing survey to determine which countries dominate the home construction supply chain. While some foundational materials like concrete are sourced domestically, others — such as electrical equipment, lighting and fixtures — depend heavily on imports.

Products from China, Mexico and Canada — countries that are currently tariffed at high rates — are responsible for the largest projected cost increases in our model home. We reached this by calculating a weighted tariff rate for each item based on the share of imports from each country and the tariff rate for that country, with the assumption that the full cost of each tariff was passed on to the consumer.

Materials primarily imported from China would add $1,708 to per-home costs, Canadian products would contribute $1,300, and Mexican imports would add $981.

Take lumber, for example. NBC News calculated that a typical 1,800-square-foot home requires about 14,400 board feet of framing lumber, totaling roughly $7,762 at wholesale prices. Almost one-third of the U.S. lumber supply is imported, and Canada supplied nearly 80% of the United States’ $14.5 billion in annual imports in 2021. A weighted 23% tariff could increase lumber prices by 7% — adding roughly $534 to home framing costs alone.

Scroll down to see how tariffs could raise prices during each phase of construction.

HUNT, Texas — Like others who were in homes or vacationing over the July 4 weekend at Texas’ Guadalupe River, Christian Fell, 25, was jolted awake by the crack of thunder.

It was about 3 a.m., just a couple hours since Fell had gone to sleep alone in his grandmother’s home on the river in Hunt, Texas. The rest of his family was staying upriver at another house. Then came more noise — this time sounding like a break-in — and he got out of bed.

Follow along for live updates

“I get up and I swing my feet over the side of the bed and I can feel water,” Fell said.

The river water that he’d normally watch from the patio of the historic stone home his grandfather built was now over his ankles — and rising fast.

He would soon learn it was dragging trees and debris that slammed against the house, tore up the patio, nearly trapped him inside and ultimately forced him to swim through a window and cling to a meter box to survive.

In what one local said is a region considered the jewel of Texas, where the river is known more as a place of play and relaxation, communities are reeling from deadly flooding that has claimed the lives of dozens of people, including 15 children.

There had been flash flood warnings, but residents said those are not unusual in the area, which, like much of the state, had also been in a yearslong drought.

So Fell, like many others, went to sleep, some wary of the storm but expecting to wake to barbecues, the smell of a wet trees and the familiar river they fished, waded and plunged into for years.

Instead, for Fell, the early-morning hours of July 4 became a fight for survival.

With the water rising fast, he walked from the bedroom to the living room, using the flashlight on his phone. He turned to see water pouring into the wrecked patio. He tried the kitchen door, hoping to reach his truck.

“I couldn’t leave through the kitchen door because as soon as I opened it, all this water started flooding in and it was about waist-high at this point, probably about five minutes after I woke up,” said Fell, who is 6 feet tall.

He returned to the bedroom and tried to climb onto the air mattress he had been sleeping on, but couldn’t. A door on another side of the house wouldn’t open. He tried calling 911 but was disconnected three times, he said. On one call, he said the dispatcher told him to call back when the water was at chin level.

“I had to go underwater and swim through the broken window,” he said.

Once outside, he tried to climb to the roof, but the gutter he grabbed on to snapped off. Fell instead clung to a meter box mounted on the house, the top of which is about 7 feet above the ground. He stood on its narrow top for several hours, his hands dangerously close to electrical wires, until the water receded.

A tree, a shed, a telephone pole and a porch

Matt Meagher, 39, and Erin Burgess, were at home in the Bumble Bee subdivision, across the street from the river. The home, which Burgess bought five years ago, is one of the closest to the river, the site of peaceful morning walks, until July 4.

They were also awakened by thunder. With their dog, Stella, they stepped outside to watch the rain, which was heavy, but not alarming. They returned to bed and checked Facebook for weather warnings, but didn’t find any.

“All of a sudden I looked at him and said, ‘What is that sound?’ and he said, ‘It sounds like it’s raining in the house.’ We looked down and water was coming through the walls,” Burgess said.

That was about 4:30 a.m. By 5:15 a.m., Burgess and her 19-year-old son were clinging to a large tree in their front yard, holding on for an hour. The water had risen so high, Burgess tiptoed to keep her head above it. They had tried to get onto the roof but were swept toward the tree instead.

Meagher grabbed Stella and was fighting the river’s current while bracing against a shed that was on the back of his pickup truck.

But the truck started to move and Meagher was nearly pinned up against it.

“So I let go and then I went to that telephone down there,” he said, pointing to a pole several feet up the road. He’d barely let go before water slammed an SUV into the same pole. His stepson had yelled that the vehicle was headed his way.

“A car started rolling towards me, so I let go again and I was about to get crushed twice,” he said.

The current carried him up the block and shoved him up against the wooden porch railing of a neighbor who was looking through a window with his flashlight. The neighbor pulled him and Stella — still in his arms — inside to safety.

“I didn’t think I was ever going to see him again,” Burgess said. “He was whistling and I was yelling and then I no longer heard him whistling.”

Burgess said she clung to a tree as she prayed for her neighborhood, and for the water to “go down and stop rushing.”

Meagher and Burgess said nearly everything in their home was destroyed. They estimate the water reached 8 feet. Mud and sewage from the septic tank also filled the 2004 Infiniti M37 — a car that Meagher, who builds hot rods, had customized with a $7,000 engine and $5,000 rims.

They had grabbed keys and flashlights — and little else — before the water broke through their door.

They didn’t know what, if anything, could be salvaged. But they reunited at a neighbor’s home later that day with one unexpected survivor.

“When the water receded … we came back in and found our cat [Kiki],” Burgess said. “Our cat was floating on my bed, alive.”

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the U.S. will revert to steep country-by-country tariff rates at the beginning of August, weeks after the tariff rate pause is set to expire.

“President Trump’s going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don’t move things along, then on Aug. 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level,” Bessent said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “So I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly.”

President Donald Trump had originally set a 90-day deadline — set to expire Wednesday — for countries to renegotiate the eye-watering tariff levels he laid out in his April 2 “Liberation Day” speech. He paused those rates a week later, while setting a new 90-day deadline to renegotiate them.

That deadline was set to expire on Wednesday.

CNN host Dana Bash responded to Bessent on Sunday, saying, “There’s basically a new deadline,” prompting Bessent to push back.

“It’s not a new deadline. We are saying this is when it’s happening,” Bessent said. “If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that’s your choice.”

On Friday, Trump, too, referred to an Aug. 1 deadline, raising questions about whether the July 9 deadline still stands. A White House spokesperson did not provide a comment when asked to clarify whether the April 2 tariff rates would resume on July 9 or Aug. 1.

The president has recently given shifting descriptions of how firm the July 9 deadline is, saying at the end of June, “We can extend it, we can shorten it,” only to double down on it several days later, saying he was not thinking about extending it.

Shortly after midnight Friday, Trump referred to an Aug. 1 timeline, telling reporters that the April 2 tariff rates would resume at the start of August.

Asked whether the U.S. would be flexible with any countries on the July 9 deadline, Trump said, “Not really.”

“They’ll start to pay on Aug. 1,” he added. “The money will start to come into the United States on Aug. 1, OK, in pretty much all cases.”

Trump said Friday that the administration would start sending letters to countries, adding, “I think by the 9th they’ll be fully covered.”

“They’ll range in value from maybe 60% or 70% tariffs to 10% and 20% tariffs, but they’re going to be starting to go out sometime tomorrow,” Trump said overnight on Friday. “We’ve done the final form, and it’s basically going to explain what the countries are going to be paying in tariffs.”

Tariffs are paid by importers — which can pass on part or all of the costs to consumers — and not necessarily by entities in the goods’ country of origin.

Bessent also noted on Sunday that “many of these countries never even contacted us.”

The White House had initially projected confidence that dozens of countries would try to make deals. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in April that “we’ve got 90 deals in 90 days possibly pending here.” Late last month, Trump said that “everybody wants to make a deal,” and after announcing sweeping tariffs on April 2, he said countries were “kissing my a–.”

“These countries are calling us up, kissing my a–,” Trump said in April. “They are. They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything.’”

The renewed uncertainty is likely to further upset markets, which saw stock futures go lower Friday after Trump mentioned the country letters. Stocks have returned to all-time highs in part due to the lull in tariff news.

So far, Trump has imposed higher import duties on autos and auto parts, steel and aluminum, and goods from China and Vietnam.