The order targets the Navy’s newest carrier-launch technology at a moment when shipbuilding budgets and sailor shortages are already under pressure. The practical question is whether reverting to steam will deliver the reliability Trump wants without creating new cost and construction delays.
Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Navy on Thursday, August 13, 2026, to return to an older system for launching jets from aircraft carriers. Under the directive, the Navy will replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, with older steam catapults on the USS Doris Miller; the change would likely cost billions of dollars.
The order puts a longstanding Trump complaint about carrier technology into a concrete shipbuilding decision. It also raises a harder question for the Navy: whether replacing a system designed to reduce manpower and improve launch capacity will make a still-unfinished carrier more dependable—or simply more expensive and slower to deliver.
The order targets the Doris Miller
According to the White House directive described by The Associated Press, the Pentagon and Navy have two months to present Trump with plans to remove EMALS. The memo also calls for replacing the Ford-class ship’s electromagnetic weapons elevators.
The USS Doris Miller, the fourth Ford-class aircraft carrier, is designated as the first vessel to receive the changes. That detail matters because the order does not amount to an immediate overhaul of every Ford-class ship already built or far along in construction.
AP reported that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the USS John F. Kennedy and the USS Enterprise would remain unchanged under the current direction. The Doris Miller, however, faces a substantial redesign after work on key launching and recovery equipment has already progressed.
EMALS was built to modernize launches
Steam catapults have launched aircraft from U.S. carriers for decades. They use steam pressure to accelerate a plane down the flight deck, a powerful but mechanically demanding process that needs extensive supporting equipment and trained personnel.
EMALS uses electromagnetic force rather than steam. The system was intended to give the Navy more precise control over launches, use less shipboard space and reduce the number of sailors required to operate the catapults.
The Navy has promoted those advantages. In a February release cited by AP, it said the USS Gerald R. Ford could launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than the older Nimitz-class carriers.
The staffing difference is particularly relevant. AP reported that EMALS on the Ford reduced the operating crew for the catapults from roughly a dozen sailors to two. A return to steam would reverse at least part of the Ford class’s labor-saving premise.
Trump has opposed the technology for years
Trump’s preference for steam catapults is not new. During his first term, he criticized the magnetic launch system in a 2017 interview with Time magazine, arguing that the older system had more power. He has revisited the subject at public events since then.
The White House memo frames the move within a wider concern about naval shipbuilding, including cost growth, delays and cancellations linked to changing designs. That creates an apparent tension in the directive: the administration is criticizing design churn while ordering a major late-stage change to a ship whose design had been settled around EMALS.
Supporters of the switch may see steam as mature, familiar technology with a long Navy operating record. Critics are likely to focus on whether familiarity outweighs the Ford class’s planned gains in manpower, space and aircraft-launch performance.
Changing course brings cost and schedule risk
General Atomics, the company that makes EMALS, told AP that dropping the system for the Doris Miller warrants “careful reconsideration.” The company said work on the ship’s catapults and arresting gear was already about halfway complete.
Its warning was specific: a change now could bring integration, cost and schedule risks. Installing steam catapults is not simply a matter of swapping one deck-mounted device for another. Steam systems require different supporting infrastructure, and a carrier is an intensely interconnected design.
AP said the mandate would likely cost billions of dollars, but a public price estimate and an implementation schedule were not provided in the reporting. The Navy’s eventual plan should clarify whether the costs are confined to the Doris Miller or whether the decision affects future carrier design, supply chains, training and maintenance planning.
Manpower is part of the debate
The directive arrives while the Navy is trying to staff its fleet. AP reported that at the start of 2026, the service had about 20,000 unfilled positions across its ships, even after recruiting improved.
That gap gives the technology fight consequences beyond engineering. If steam catapults require more personnel, the Navy would need to assign sailors to a task EMALS was meant to streamline. Those sailors would have to come from a force already balancing shipboard needs across the fleet.
There is also a strategic contrast. China’s newest carriers use electromagnetic catapults, according to AP, and France has said it plans to use the technology on its next carrier. Those choices do not by themselves settle the reliability debate, but they complicate the idea that EMALS is an abandoned or marginal technology.
Congress and the Navy face the next test
The order lands during a broader fight over defense spending. Congress is considering funding sought by the Trump administration for Pentagon priorities and the Iran war, with the Senate still expected to act after returning in September, AP reported.
That makes the eventual Navy plan more than an internal technical review. Lawmakers will need to weigh the price of redesigning the Doris Miller against other shipbuilding, readiness and personnel demands.
For now, Trump has set a direction, not supplied a finished engineering blueprint. The two-month planning deadline will show whether the Navy can translate the preference for steam catapults into a workable carrier redesign—and how much capability, time and money that reversal would require.
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