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Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to redesign a United States Navy aircraft carrier, replacing its advanced electromagnetic launch system with traditional steam catapults capable of launching fighter jets. The order represents a remarkable intervention in military procurement by a former president now eyeing a political comeback in 2028. It is the kind of headline that makes defence analysts spill their coffee and question whether the commander-in-chief actually understands what he’s ordering.
The Redesign Order
The directive comes from the former president who has made a habit of second-guessing every institution he once led. Trump wants the US Navy’s next-generation carrier fitted with steam catapults rather than the electromagnetic system that has equipped the USS Gerald R Ford and its sister ships. The electromagnetic launch system, known as EMALS, was supposed to be a technological marvel but has suffered reliability issues and cost overruns that would make any Victorian entrepreneur blush. Steam catapults, by contrast, have powered carriers from the Kitty Hawk class right through to the Nimitz class for half a century, launching everything from A-4 Skyhawks to F/A-18 Super Hornets with zero fuss and maximum reliability. The order forces the Pentagon to go back to the drawing board on a programme that has already consumed billions in taxpayer money, all because Trump fancies the old way of doing things.
What makes this order particularly galling is that it undermines years of Navy planning and fleet modernisation. The Ford-class carriers were designed from the ground up around electromagnetic technology, meaning a retrofit would require tearing out miles of wiring, reconfiguring the flight deck and potentially delaying operational readiness at a time when China’s navy is growing more assertive by the day. The former president shows absolutely no interest in the operational consequences, treating the most powerful warships on earth like vintage machinery he tinkers with in his garage. It is arrant nonsense from beginning to end, and the sailors who will have to live with the consequences deserve better than a reality TV star’s hobbyhorse.
The Key Players
The most obvious player here is Donald Trump, the 45th president who has spent post-presidency years fulminating against the “deep state” and anyone who doesn’t worship at his altar. Trump has never been shy about expressing opinions on matters he clearly knows nothing about, from windmills causing cancer to hydroxychloroquine as a COVID miracle cure. Now he’s meddling in naval engineering with the same casual ignorance. The Pentagon, for its part, has to figure out how to execute this brainwave without embarrassing itself further. Admiral chiefs and procurement executives will be digging through manuals not consulted since the Cold War, trying to square the circle between Trump’s campaign promise optics and actual military utility. There’s also Congress, which will no doubt hold hearings where embarrassed senators ask why the Navy didn’t stop this madness sooner.
Then there’s the Navy itself, the actual people who fly off and land on these floating cities. The aviators I’ve spoken to over the years generally prefer the steam system—it’s proven, it’s predictable and when you’re launching off in a $80 million jet, you want reliability over experimental technology. The shipbuilders at Newport News are the ones who’ll have to do the actual redesign work, meaning thousands of workers and suppliers will have their schedules turned upside down because one man thought steam catapults sounded tougher. And let’s not forget the taxpayer, who will foot the bill for this retroactive tinkering. Everyone involved comes out of this looking somewhat less credible, except perhaps the steam catapult manufacturers who will see a sudden surge in interest from a bureaucracy that should know better.
The Catapult Technology Debate
The technical argument between steam and electromagnetic catapults has been raging in naval circles for decades, and Trump’s intervention has brought it back with a vengeance. Steam catapults use high-pressure steam generated by the ship’s reactors to fling aircraft off the deck—simple, robust, and proven over millions of launch cycles. The electromagnetic system on the Ford class uses massive electric motors and power storage units to achieve the same result, promising smoother launches that reduce stress on airframes and allow for future aircraft that aren’t yet invented. The problem? EMALS has been a money pit, with cost overruns exceeding $5 billion and availability rates that have had Navy admirals reaching for antacids. It’s the kind of procurement disaster that makes you wonder if the acquisition process has been infiltrated by people who couldn’t run a popsicle stand in hell.
Trump clearly remembers the EMALS fiasco from his first term and fancies himself a genius for spotting the “obvious” solution. But anyone with half a brain in naval engineering knows that switching back isn’t as simple as swapping a few knobs. The Ford-class carriers are built around EMALS from keel to keel—removing it would be like trying to convert a Formula 1 car to run on tractor fuel mid-race. The weight savings from removing the electromagnetic plant would be offset by the need to reinforce the flight deck for steam operations, not to mention the nuclear reactor modifications required to generate enough steam. It’s a solution looking for a problem, invented by a man who thinks every problem has a simple answer because he’s never had to deal with the consequences of his own ignorance.
Political Reaction
The political fallout has been swift and predictable, with Democrats queueing up to call this exactly what it is: a distraction from actual security challenges masquerading as competence. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t waste a breath before labelling the order “another Trump own goal that will cost taxpayers dearly while weakening our naval advantage.” Republican hawks have been more circumspect, worried about appearing soft on defence while also not wanting to openly mock the former president’s technical ignorance. Some have tried to put a positive spin on it, suggesting the Navy could benefit from more redundancy in its launch systems, but even they seem embarrassed having to defend this nonsense.
Military experts and retired admirals have been more blunt, using language that would make a sailor’s mother blush. Former Navy Secretary James Mattis, who served under Trump and then wrote a book excoriating him, called the order “the ramblings of a man who wouldn’t know a carrier deck from a lifeboat.” Others have been kinder, suggesting at least Trump is thinking about naval procurement, though his solution appears to be stuck in the 1970s. Conservative pundits have generally fallen in line, praising the former president for “putting the military first” while conveniently ignoring the billions in wasted money and years of delays this retrofit will cause. The public, meanwhile, seems largely confused, with plenty of people asking why we’re redesigning a ship that’s already in service instead of building new ones or fixing the ones we have.
Consequences for the Navy
The immediate consequence is a massive hit to the Navy’s budget at a time when every dollar is supposed to count. A retrofit of this scale could easily add another $2-3 billion to the Ford programme, money that could have gone towards maintaining existing ships, training new pilots or developing actual new capabilities. The schedule will inevitably slip—Navy acquisition timelines have a way of turning into quicksand, and this retrofit will suck everything down into the mire. Operational readiness could suffer as crews spend months, possibly years, training on a system they’re used to but now have to unlearn and relearn. The Ford carrier, already beset by EMALS reliability issues, will be sidelined even further while the retrofitting happens, leaving a gap in the fleet that China and Russia won’t let go unnoticed.
In the longer term, this decision erodes faith in the Navy’s acquisition process. Sailors and officers will wonder what other harebrained schemes are waiting in the wings, approved by politicians who couldn’t find the Pentagon on a map. It feeds the narrative that defence spending is riddled with waste and political meddling, exactly the kind of thing that gives ammunition to defence cutters in Congress. Our allies will look at this chaos and question whether the world’s premier naval power knows what it’s doing, while our adversaries will be licking their lips at the prospect of a distracted, financially strained fleet. Trump clearly doesn’t care about any of this—his interest is in the headline, the photo op, the chance to tell his rallies that he’s “fixing the military” even as he breaks it a little more each day.