DONALD TRUMP has ordered the Pentagon to redesign the U.S. Navy’s next aircraft carrier around steam-powered catapults, turning a grievance he has repeated for nine years into a multibillion-dollar procurement decision.
Trump’s national security memorandum gives Pentagon leaders 60 days to produce a plan for replacing the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS, and the Ford class’s Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems aboard the future USS Doris Miller.
The Doris Miller is the fourth Ford-class carrier and the first ship covered by the order. The USS Gerald R. Ford and the forthcoming John F. Kennedy and Enterprise retain their electromagnetic systems.
Redesigning a Carrier Already Underway
Newport News Shipbuilding began constructing the Doris Miller in 2021, three years after the Navy awarded the yard a $15.2 billion contract covering the Enterprise and Doris Miller.
The two-carrier purchase was structured around a shared technical design, allowing the shipbuilder to reuse engineering work and limit changes between vessels. Trump’s order breaks that planned commonality after suppliers have begun producing major components.
The Doris Miller is scheduled for delivery in February 2034, two years later than the Navy’s previous estimate. The service attributed that delay to shipyard space constraints limiting construction of the carrier’s modules.
General Atomics received a $1.204 billion Navy contract in 2023 to supply EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear for the Doris Miller. The company said production is nearly halfway finished.
“With nearly 50% of production complete, changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks,” General Atomics said .
The weapons elevators covered by Trump’s order perform a separate function, carrying munitions from magazines deep inside the carrier to its upper decks. The Navy says the electromagnetic elevators move heavier loads faster and require fewer sailors than the hydraulic systems installed on Nimitz-class carriers.
EMALS From Troubled Debut to Deployment
EMALS uses stored kinetic energy, solid-state electrical equipment and a linear motor to accelerate aircraft along the flight deck. The Navy designed the system to provide smoother acceleration, lower maintenance and staffing demands, and the ability to launch aircraft ranging from lightweight drones to heavy strike fighters.
Its development brought cost increases, delays and reliability failures. A 2009 government review identified EMALS as a major threat to the Ford program’s budget and schedule because production began before testing had demonstrated a ship-ready system.
A Pentagon report submitted in March found that hardware and software upgrades had gradually improved EMALS reliability and availability. Dependence on technical help from outside the ship remained a challenge, and major operational tests were incomplete.
The system has accumulated an extensive operating record. During the Ford’s latest deployment, the carrier completed more than 11,000 fixed-wing launches and recoveries over 326 days and 86,000 miles. France has also selected EMALS for its next carrier, expanding its planned purchase to three launch configurations.
A Nine-Year Grievance Becomes Policy
Trump first publicly demanded a return to steam in a 2017 interview with TIME Magazine.
“It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out,” Trump said.
“I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”
He revived the account during a 2018 Thanksgiving call with service members, a 2019 Republican fundraiser, 2020 campaign speeches and political appearances in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
After returning to office, Trump raised the subject at Tulsi Gabbard’s swearing-in, aboard the USS George Washington and at a July defense summit.
“We can fix it with a hammer and a blowtorch. When the electric goes bad, I have to send to MIT to get geniuses over here,” Trump said at the summit.
Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, former astronaut and Navy combat veteran, rejected the president’s intervention.
“I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships,” Kelly wrote.
“Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best—ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.”
Foreign Construction and a Fifth Navy Yard
Trump’s memorandum also creates a conditional exception allowing foreign companies to build the first two ships in as many as three selected ship classes at their overseas yards.
Qualifying companies must invest in or acquire a U.S. shipyard, train an American workforce, license their construction technology to the domestic yard and establish a U.S. supply chain. Later vessels must be built in the United States. The plan applies to selected surface combatants, replenishment tankers and roll-on, roll-off ships, leaving the Doris Miller outside the foreign-building provision.
Each foreign construction contract requires a national security waiver and congressional notification at least 30 days before an award.
The memorandum also requires a plan within 120 days for a fifth public Navy yard, including as many as three new dry docks capable of servicing current and planned submarines. The administration says the facility would expand submarine and aircraft carrier repair capacity near the Pacific fleet.
The carrier redesign, foreign-yard program and new public shipyard remain subject to congressional appropriations.
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"He's a fucking moron".
—Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State
Could Frumpy get any dumber????
Yet, the Republicans still blindly follow him with their tales between their legs, no matter how badly it affects their constituents. Do they think we’ll forget this ridiculousness?