Trump orders Navy to abandon electromagnetic catapults on USS Doris Miller, return to steam
President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday ordering the Navy to remove the electromagnetic launch system from the USS Doris Miller and revert to steam catapults, a change expected to cost billions and one Navy officials have resisted for years.
The memorandum
President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the Pentagon to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from the USS Doris Miller, a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier already two years behind schedule, and replace it with traditional steam catapults. The memorandum gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao 60 days to produce a plan for replacing both EMALS and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems. Huntington Ingalls is the primary contractor building the Ford-class carriers. The USS Doris Miller is the fourth ship in that class.
Cost disputes and contractor response
Estimates of the financial impact diverge sharply across sources. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal report the change is expected to cost billions of dollars, while Handelsblatt cites a figure in the hundreds of millions. The discrepancy reflects the early stage of planning for a retrofit whose full scope has not been defined. General Atomics, the manufacturer of the EMALS system, called for a careful review of the decision, warning that production of the Doris Miller is already nearly 50% complete. The company said a course change carries considerable risks for cost, schedule, and integration. Navy officials have fought the proposed reversal for years, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A system the Navy chose in 2009
The Navy selected EMALS in 2009 because it requires less maintenance and places less stress on aircraft during launch, according to Handelsblatt. On the first carrier of the class, the USS Gerald R. Ford, 36,863 launches had been completed with the system by March 2026, per Pentagon documents. Trump has frequently criticized the electromagnetic system as more expensive and less effective than steam catapults.
Trump's decade-long campaign
Trump has complained about the electromagnetic system every year since 2017, when he first described his preference for steam catapults to Time magazine. He recounted a conversation he said he had with an unnamed Navy officer.
So I said, 'What is this?' 'Sir, this is our digital catapult system.' 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.
A Guardian review of Trump's public remarks found he retold the story with variations each year: in 2018 during a Thanksgiving phone call with the commanding officer of the USS Ronald Reagan, in 2019 at a Republican fundraiser, in 2020 in campaign speeches during the pandemic, in 2021 at the CPAC convention, in 2022 at a campaign speech in Texas, in 2023 on the campaign trail in Iowa, and in 2024 to Tucker Carlson.
- Trump first describes his steam catapult preference to Time magazine
- Retells the story during a Thanksgiving phone call with the commanding officer of the USS Ronald Reagan
- Recounts the conversation with the 'catapulter' to Republican donors at a fundraiser
- The tale becomes a regular part of campaign speeches during the pandemic
- Tells the story at the CPAC convention
- Shares the story in a campaign speech in Texas
- Repeats the story on the campaign trail in Iowa
- Tells Tucker Carlson the same story at a final campaign event
- Criticizes EMALS at a defense summit in Pennsylvania
- Signs national security memorandum ordering return to steam catapults on the USS Doris Miller
Last month, at a defense summit in Pennsylvania, Trump renewed the criticism.
Billions of dollars more they spent on electric catapults and they're not good. They're not nearly as good, too complex.
Broader fleet changes
Handelsblatt also reports that Trump's memorandum opens warship construction to foreign shipyards for the first time in decades, a shift with potentially far-reaching implications for the U.S. naval industrial base. The full scope of that provision and which countries' shipyards might participate has not yet been detailed.
