- Trump signed a national security memorandum ordering the Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from Ford-class carriers and revert to steam catapults, a multibillion-dollar reversal of a decades-long modernization program the service has fiercely defended.
- EMALS, developed by General Atomics, was designed to reduce mechanical stress on aircraft, require fewer crew to operate, and handle a wider range of aircraft weights than steam — advantages the Navy argues make it strategically superior despite its troubled development history.
- Retrofitting Ford-class carriers for steam will cost billions and require significant structural modifications, as the ships were designed from the ground up around EMALS, raising serious questions about fleet readiness during any transition period.
- The order reflects Trump’s longstanding skepticism of EMALS, which he has called unreliable and overly complex, and escalates his pattern of overriding Pentagon technology decisions on high-profile military hardware.
What Happened?
Trump signed a national security memorandum directing the U.S. Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from its Ford-class aircraft carriers and restore the conventional steam catapult technology EMALS was built to replace. EMALS, developed by General Atomics, uses electromagnetic coils to accelerate aircraft down a carrier’s flight deck — a major technological leap from the steam-driven systems that powered U.S. carriers for decades. Despite years of Navy advocacy for the system, Trump, who has long criticized EMALS as unreliable and unnecessarily complex, formalized his opposition through the memorandum and ordered a rollback the service has consistently resisted.
Why It Matters?
The decision carries enormous financial and operational consequences. Ford-class carriers were engineered from the hull up to accommodate EMALS, meaning reverting to steam is not a simple swap — it requires costly structural overhauls and will take ships out of operational rotation during the conversion. More broadly, the mandate signals that major defense acquisition programs are now vulnerable to executive reversal regardless of technical merit or sunk investment, chilling long-term planning across the defense industrial base. For General Atomics and the workforce tied to EMALS contracts, the order creates immediate uncertainty about the program’s future viability.
What’s Next?
The Navy will be required to produce a cost estimate and conversion timeline expected to run into the billions — costs that will require Congressional appropriation and are likely to face pushback from defense committees who backed EMALS as a modernization priority. Future Ford-class carriers still under construction now face design uncertainty about which launch system they will ultimately carry. Internationally, the decision may be scrutinized by China and other nations investing in their own electromagnetic carrier launch technologies, raising questions about whether the U.S. is ceding a generational advantage in carrier aviation.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
