Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers
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- Trump issued a directive Thursday ordering the Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from future Ford-class carriers and revert to steam catapults, with the Pentagon and Navy given two months to present removal plans.
- The memo also calls for replacing the Ford-class carrier's electromagnetic weapons elevators, with the fourth ship, USS Doris Miller, designated as the first to receive the changes; USS Gerald R. Ford, USS John F. Kennedy, and USS Enterprise would be left untouched.
- General Atomics, which manufactures EMALS, told the AP that the Doris Miller's catapults and arresting gear were already halfway complete and warned that 'changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks.'
- Trump's opposition to the system dates to at least 2017, when he told Time magazine the electromagnetic system is 'not good' and 'doesn't have the power' of steam, vowing 'You're going to goddamned steam.'
- The reversal runs against the Navy's own recruitment math: EMALS cuts catapult operators from about a dozen to two sailors, and the Navy entered the year with roughly 20,000 unfilled posts across the fleet.
- The move comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated the Iran war's cost at $37.5 billion and pushed a $95 billion supplemental and a $1.5 trillion defense budget, with the Senate still needing to act when it returns in September.
- China already employs electromagnetic catapults on its newest carriers, and France has said it plans to adopt the system on its next carrier — putting the U.S. on a diverging track if the reversal goes through.
Why it matters: Trump's order would unwind the Navy's most significant carrier-launch advancement in decades on a ship mid-construction, adding billions in rework costs and dozens more sailors per ship at a time when the fleet is already roughly 20,000 sailors short — and it puts the U.S. carrier force on a different technological path than China, which is already flying electromagnetic catapults operationally.
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