Trump orders newest carrier to ditch cutting-edge launch system for 1950s steam catapults

President Donald Trump has ordered the electromagnetic aircraft launch system on the Navy's newest carrier stripped out and replaced with steam catapults — technology dating to the 1950s.

The White House on Thursday released the full text of a national security presidential memorandum signed by Trump, titled "Rebuilding the US Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base," according to USNI News, the defense publication Breaking Defense and Britain's Guardian.

The memorandum directs the Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and the Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) from CVN-81, the fourth Ford-class nuclear-powered carrier currently under construction, and replace them with steam and hydraulic systems. The secretary of defense must consult with the secretary of the Navy and submit a plan — including a schedule and required resources — to the president within 60 days.

The directive cited "a series of shipbuilding delays stemming from an overly complex design and repeated design-change procedures" as justification for the move.

The order itself, however, represents a sweeping design reversal on a ship whose specifications had already been finalized. The Ford-class carrier is scheduled to begin construction later this year, launch in October 2029 and be delivered in early 2034. The Associated Press reported the change would cost billions of dollars and would send one of the Navy's most advanced warships back to equipment that requires more personnel to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

Trump has repeatedly argued that electromagnetic launch systems are too complex, a position he has held since a conversation with Navy officers in 2017. In a speech at the US Army War College last month, he said the Navy would no longer build ships that spend billions more on electric catapults.

The AP noted that China's newest aircraft carrier uses an electromagnetic catapult system, and that France plans to adopt the same technology for its next carrier.

Meanwhile, the presidential memorandum also outlined conditions under which foreign suppliers could build new shipyards in the United States or acquire controlling stakes in existing ones — provided they hire and train American workers and transfer their parent shipyard's technology to US facilities. The move would open the door, for the first time in decades, to constructing US Navy vessels abroad.