US President Donald Trump has signed a national security memorandum directing the Navy to abandon the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) used on the first three Ford-class aircraft carriers and instead return to using steam catapults. According to reports from Reuters, this design change is expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The decision affects the fourth vessel in the Gerald R. Ford class, the Doris Miller, with the keel scheduled to be laid by the end of 2026 and delivery anticipated by the Navy in early 2034. As per Reuters, Trump directed the service to equip Ford-class aircraft carriers with steam-powered catapult and hydraulic systems instead of the newer EMALS and Advanced Weapons Elevators. When the Navy selected EMALS in 2009, it said it would lower overall lifecycle costs, require less maintenance than steam catapults and generate less physical stress on carrier-based aircraft, but Trump has frequently criticized the system as being more expensive and not as effective as steam catapults.
The National Security Presidential Memorandum signed by Trump on August 13 contains an unusually specific instruction: "Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81, including timelines and resourcing requirements." As reported by Reuters, the US Navy now faces an unenviable task of spending the next 60 days producing a comprehensive plan that presumably details the engineering changes, cost implications, and delays involved. The Ford class was designed from the outset around extensive electrification, with its two A1B reactors providing far more generating capacity than those of the preceding Nimitz class, and electricity doing work that steam, hydraulics or mechanical machinery performed on earlier carriers. EMALS is integrated deeply into the architecture of the ship, crossing 48 separate ship construction zones, making removal from a mature design considerably more complicated than exchanging one type of catapult for another.
As reported by Reuters, Trump has frequently criticized the Navy's electromagnetic launch system as being more expensive and not as effective as steam catapults. "Billions of dollars more they spent on electric catapults and they're not good. They're not nearly as good, too complex," Trump stated at a defense summit in Pennsylvania last month. According to Reuters, the Navy will need to "spend tens of millions and take years to stand up this production capacity again" since steam catapults are no longer in production and the Navy bought the last set 20 years ago. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in the new class, had completed 36,863 EMALS launches as of March 2026, according to Pentagon documents. General Atomics, the maker of EMALS, expressed concerns about the decision, stating that "changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks" with nearly 50% of production complete. The company's work on the EMALS and AAG equipment for Doris Miller is already nearly 50% complete, and abandoning it would write off work already paid for before the cost of designing, manufacturing and integrating a replacement had even been considered.
According to Reuters, Trump's memo opens up the Navy to having ships made overseas for the first time in decades. Foreign shipbuilders who have made "substantial and durable investments" in US shipyards will be temporarily permitted to build up to two ships in their parent shipyards that will be delivered to bridge gaps on a quick turnaround. As per Reuters, Trump's memo also instructed the secretary of defense to establish a fifth Navy shipyard to increase submarine and aircraft carrier repair capacity. The new National Security Presidential Memorandum urges the expansion of the "Finland model" currently employed to build the Coast Guard's Arctic Security Cutters, where initial vessels are built in Finland by foreign yards and subsequent vessels are constructed domestically. The memo allows foreign shipbuilders to construct up to two ships in three different ship classes at their parent docks, which would then be transferred to the US. These ship classes include surface combatants with "sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties," as well as those that meet "the requirements for Consolidated Cargo Replenishment at Sea (CONSOL) Tankers and — separately — Roll-On, Roll-Off Vessels."
As reported by Reuters, Huntington Ingalls is the primary contractor building Ford-class aircraft carriers, and Huntington's shares were up slightly in after-hours trading in New York following the announcement. According to Reuters, General Atomics, which secured a $1.2 billion contract to build the EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) for the USS Doris Miller, said the decision not to proceed with EMALS on the ship "warrants careful reconsideration." The company stated that "the decision will have broader implications for carrier readiness, national security and U.S. technological superiority, potentially creating opportunities for adversaries to close the capability gap." The Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association representing US shipyards, urged the administration to "reverse course and redirect this funding to qualified U.S. shipyards." Council president Matthew Paxton stated that "directing the DoW to build overseas only undercuts the federal Maritime Action Plan and generational investment into commercial and government shipbuilding." He added that "Every hull built abroad is demand, jobs, and industrial capability diverted from American shipyards this Administration pledged to rebuild."
