U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media, before boarding Air Force One on his way to Virginia, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., April 10, 2026.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The U.S. fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman, President Donald Trump said Sunday.
In a post to Truth Social, the president said the U.S. intercepted a ship called the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman and gave it a warning to stop. The vessel was fired upon when it did not stop. The U.S. has been operating a naval blockade of ships entering and exiting Iranian ports since last week.
“The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom,” Trump said in the post. “Right now, U.S. Marines have custody of the vessel. The TOUSKA is under U.S. Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity.”
The seizure is an apparent escalation of the blockade and comes after Iran fired upon commercial vessels attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz earlier on Sunday.
U.S. envoys led by Vice President JD Vance were expected to travel to Pakistan on Monday for a second round of peace talks with their Iranian counterparts, a White House official told CNBC. Iran has rebuffed those talks, according to a state media report.
Iran cited the ongoing blockade, which it views as a breach of the ceasefire reached by the U.S. and Iran, as one of its reasons for calling off the expected negotiations in Islamabad on Monday.
Trump warned on Sunday that if Iran did not agree to the U.S.’s terms to end the conflict, he would “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”
The TOUSKA was last known to be transiting the Arabian Sea, according to VesselFinder. The container ship is listed in the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions list.
It’s unclear if the TOUSKA is the first seizure of the U.S. blockade. Trump said the ship was intercepted by the USS Spruance, a guided missile destroyer of the U.S. Navy.
The Department of Defense referred CNBC to the White House in response to an inquiry seeking more information on the seizure. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
