President Trump has been complaining about the U.S. Navy's whiz-bangy electromagnetic aircraft catapults for nearly a decade, and he's finally had enough.
On Thursday, the president signed a national security memorandum ordering Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to, among other things, begin the process of bringing steam catapults and hydraulic systems back to America's aircraft carriers.
The immediate target is the USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), the fourth Ford-class carrier, which is currently under construction.
RESTORING AMERICA'S MARITIME DOMINANCE. 🇺🇸🚢
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 13, 2026
Today, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum to decisively usher in a new Maritime Golden Age, expand commercial shipbuilding capacity, build a resilient workforce, and revitalize a crucial industry. pic.twitter.com/uGPK5chPcf
There is an important distinction to make about what Trump actually ordered.
The Navy is not being told to start ripping electromagnetic catapults out of carriers already in service. Instead, Hegseth, in consultation with the secretary of the Navy, has been given 60 days to present the president with a plan that lays out what it will take to replace the Doris Miller's Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, with traditional steam catapults, as well as replacing its advanced weapons elevators with hydraulic systems.
That plan has to include timelines for getting the work done and lists of resources required to make the changes.
So this is considerably more than Trump goodnaturedly ribbing some Navy technology he's disliked for years. He's now ordering the Pentagon to figure out how to redesign a carrier already being built – and bring the steam catapult back to life.
The electromagnetic catapults used on the Navy's newest class of aircraft carriers have long been a bugaboo for Trump. Back in 2019, during his first term, he promised, "I'm going to just put out an order. We're going to use steam."
He added:
"Steam's only worked for about 65 years perfectly. And I won't tell you this because it's before my time by a little bit, but they have a $900 million cost overrun on this crazy electric catapult. They want to show — next, next, next. And we all want innovation, but it's too much."
Trump had good reason to complain about EMALS, apparently. The system was introduced alongside promises that it would reduce stress on aircraft, require fewer sailors to operate, and improve catapult reliability, but it suffered serious reliability problems and cost concerns.
The catapult order, though, is only one piece of a much broader effort by the president to improve Navy shipbuilding.
President Trump's memorandum also opens the door to having some Navy ships built overseas under what the White House calls the "Finland Model." The idea is to let an experienced foreign shipbuilder construct the first ships while simultaneously investing in U.S. shipyards and training American workers. That would set the stage for future ships to be built in the U.S.
Taken together, the memo makes it clear that the president is declaring war on EMALS. It looks like he's trying to overhaul the way the U.S. Navy builds ships from the catapult deck on down, even if it means reviving old technology like the steam catapult and borrowing the shipbuilding expertise of a foreign partner.
Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.
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