President Trump extended the U.S.-Iran ceasefire on Tuesday at the request of Pakistan, reversing his Monday stance that an extension was unlikely and putting off a Wednesday evening expiry that would have reopened a two-month-old war. Hours later, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz and fired on a third, according to British maritime authorities and Iranian state media, leaving the truce intact but the waterway more dangerous than it has been since the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports took effect a week ago.
The reversal buys Trump a second reprieve in as many weeks and keeps the Islamabad diplomatic track alive, but it resolves none of the core questions driving the conflict. The U.S. Navy continues to cordon off Iranian ports. Iran has declared the blockade an act of war. Tehran has not agreed to the two conditions Trump has said any peace deal must include: an end to its nuclear program and to its support for regional proxies. The extension carries no announced end date, a departure from the two-week clock Trump attached to the first ceasefire earlier this month.
A frantic Tuesday
Tuesday began with Air Force Two on the tarmac, ready to fly Vice President JD Vance to Islamabad for a second round of talks brokered by Pakistan. By midafternoon, the plane had not taken off. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, senior members of the U.S. negotiating team, flew from Miami to Washington instead of proceeding to Pakistan. Vance went to the White House for what aides described as policy meetings. Iran had never publicly confirmed it would attend.
Trump announced the extension on Truth Social. "We have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal," he wrote, citing the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan. He added that he had directed the U.S. military "to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able."
Esmail Baghaei, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, acknowledged the extension in comments to Iranian media, the Guardian reported, but did not commit Tehran to sending a delegation to Islamabad.
Hormuz escalates
While Washington waited, the Strait of Hormuz did not. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said an IRGC gunboat fired on a container ship near Oman, causing "heavy damage to the bridge," with no fires and all crew reported safe. A separate UKMTO warning described an outbound cargo ship west of Iran that had been fired upon and was stopped in the water, its crew accounted for and the vessel undamaged. Iranian media named the third ship as the Euphoria and said it was stranded off Iran's coast.
The IRGC Navy said on X that it had seized two vessels, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, and escorted them to Iran's coast, accusing the ships of "operating without the necessary permits and tampering with navigation systems." The command added that "Disruption of order and safety in the Strait of Hormuz is our red line," and claimed the MSC Francesca was "linked to the Zionist regime."
The seizures follow Sunday's interdiction by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Spruance, which fired into the engine room of the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska in the Gulf of Oman and turned the vessel over to Marines — the first shot fired since the blockade began.
What Trump gets
The extension gives Trump cover on two fronts. It postpones a return to open combat that is unpopular with his anti-interventionist base, and it keeps a negotiating channel open without requiring him to lift the blockade. "This is a pragmatic decision based on what are quite obvious fractures in the current leadership of the Iranian government," Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told the BBC.
James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, told the BBC that "There is no clear formula" for ending wars and noted that Trump is not the first American president to "threaten significant military escalation" while also "putting a good deal on the table." Katulis added that the move "begs the question though for Trump about how he can deal with the economic pain that Americans are experiencing and the political pain he's experiencing from his base."
The counterpoint
The Fox News account of the day placed the emphasis elsewhere: on an Iranian military that, hours after Trump's announcement, attacked three ships and seized two. That framing treats the ceasefire extension as a concession the Revolutionary Guard promptly tested. By that read, Trump's reversal — the second in two weeks he has stepped back from an escalation he threatened — telegraphs a reluctance Tehran is already exploiting, even as the blockade holds and gasoline prices at home stay elevated.
What to watch
The White House has set no new deadline. Vance's delayed Islamabad trip has not been rescheduled. Iran has not said whether it will send envoys. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of the world's seaborne oil, remains a live shooting zone. Trump's next test is whether a "unified proposal" arrives from Tehran at all — and what he does if it does not.