The United States announced on Sunday that it had taken custody of an Iranian cargo ship that attempted to pass a blockade Washington has been maintaining around Iranian ports.
In response, Iran accused the US of breaking the ceasefire in the US-Israeli war, and vowed to retaliate.
The incident cast further doubt over the future of the truce, which is due to expire on Wednesday. Also on Sunday, Iran said it had “no plans” to attend negotiations in Pakistan aimed at ending the war, while Trump threatened to “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”
The US has maintained a blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has lifted and then reimposed its own blockade on marine traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which typically handles roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. US demands for freedom of movement in the strait, and Iran’s continued obstruction of it, are at the center of negotiations between the countries.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social site that the US had seized an Iranian vessel that tried to run the US blockade.
“Today, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA — nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier — tried to get past our naval blockade, and it did not go well for them,” Trump wrote in the post.
“The US Navy guided missile destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave [it a] fair warning to stop,” Trump continued. “The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineer room. Right now, US Marines have custody of the vessel.”
“The TOUSKA is under US Treasury sanctions because of [its] prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what’s on board!” the US president added.
Iran’s top joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya, later accused the US of violating the truce. State media quoted a Khatam al-Anbiya spokesperson as saying that the vessel was en route from China to Iran.
“We warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy by the US military,” the spokesperson said.
U.S. forces operating in the Arabian Sea enforced naval blockade measures against an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel attempting to sail toward an Iranian port, April 19.
Guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) intercepted M/V Touska as it transited the north Arabian Sea at… https://t.co/iyzOQd93C3 pic.twitter.com/HwU4XS48Oq
— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) April 19, 2026
Later on Sunday, the American military published footage showing a US Navy missile destroyer opening fire on the Iranian cargo ship, and provided further details about the incident.
The American destroyer “intercepted M/V Touska as it transited the north Arabian Sea at 17 knots en route to Bandar Abbas, Iran. American forces issued multiple warnings and informed the Iranian-flagged vessel it was in violation of the U.S. blockade,” US Central Command said in a statement.
CENTCOM said that after Touska’s crew “failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period, Spruance directed the vessel to evacuate its engine room.” Audio of a US crew member ordering the Iranian ship to vacate the room can be heard in the video shared by CENTCOM.
The missile destroyer disabled the Iranian cargo ship’s propulsion “by firing several rounds from the destroyer’s 5-inch MK 45 Gun into Touska’s engine room.”
“U.S. Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit later boarded the non-compliant vessel, which remains in U.S. custody,” CENTCOM said.
CENTCOM said its forces “acted in a deliberate, professional, and proportional manner to ensure compliance.”
French firm says ship targeted with warning shots
Tensions also remained high over the Strait of Hormuz. French shipping company CMA CGM said that one of its vessels was the target of warning shots in the strait yesterday, and Trump said Iran had fired on French and British ships in the strait.
The International Maritime Organization confirmed that a French-flagged vessel was involved. The IMO, which regulates international shipping, said there have been 24 incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and across the Middle East since March 1.
The latest, on April 18, involved the CMA CGM Everglade, a container ship sailing under the French flag. The IMO said it was damaged north of Kumzar, Oman, though no pollution or injuries were reported.
Trump said today on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Iran had “fired bullets” in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that “many of them were aimed at a French ship and a freighter from the United Kingdom.”
The British military, meanwhile, has declared the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf to be “critical,” its highest risk level. The military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, UKMTO, cited “a high level of activity by naval forces in the region.”
It said there is a “risk of attack or miscalculation” in the waterway. The UKMTO also cited multiple attacks on Saturday by Iranian forces on vessels passing through the strait.
US energy secretary: Gas prices to remain high
More than 20 vessels passed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, data from shipping analytics firm Kpler showed, the highest number of ships crossing the waterway since March 1, the war’s second day.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday, prior to news of the Iranian ship’s seizure, that the US “is not too far away from a deal” with the Iranians.
“There are negotiations with the Iranians going on, despite what you hear in the chatter in public, I think those are actually going well,” Wright told “Fox News Sunday.”
Wright said Trump is “a creative negotiator” who uses “pressure in different ways, uses uncertainty in different ways.”
“I think we’ll have a nice end of this conflict,” Wright predicted, adding that restarting shipping “will take time but probably not too much time” once the Strait of Hormuz was reopened.
But oil prices rose in early trading Sunday amid the conflict. The price of U.S. crude oil increased 6.4 percent to $87.90 per barrel an hour after trading resumed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 5.8% to $95.64 per barrel.
Sunday’s higher prices wiped out much of the declines seen Friday, signaling renewed doubts about how soon ships will again transport the vast amounts oil the world gets from the Middle East.
Asked when he thought US motorists would again see gas cost less than $3 a gallon on average, Wright said prices at the pump might not go down that much until next year.
“But prices have likely peaked, and they’ll start going down,” Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
A gallon of regular gas costs an average of nearly $4.05 a gallon in the US on Sunday, according to the road assistance group AAA. That’s about 8 cents lower than a week ago, but far higher than $2.98 before the war.
