On August 13, 2026, Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing the U.S. Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from its newest aircraft carriers and return to steam catapults; the electromagnetic weapons elevators are to be replaced as well. The memorandum also permits the Navy to build ships overseas.
This is not a technical adjustment. It moves the fourth Ford-class carrier, the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), back toward an earlier design in the fundamental architecture of the ship. It will be the first new vessel configured with steam catapults, while the first three Ford-class carriers — Gerald R. Ford, John F. Kennedy and Enterprise — will retain their electromagnetic systems.
I. Two Actions in One Memorandum
The memorandum also reaches deep into the U.S. shipbuilding industry. It directs the Department of Defense to rebuild the industrial base around a “Finland model”: a foreign shipbuilder that makes a substantial, sustained investment in an American yard, creates jobs and trains American workers could be temporarily allowed to build as many as two vessels at its overseas parent company, while the remaining orders would be built in revitalized U.S. shipyards.
It also orders the department to establish the Navy’s fifth naval shipyard — the first new naval shipyard in more than 80 years — and to expand repair capacity for submarines and aircraft carriers, while creating component-repair centers to store and refurbish critical submarine parts.
The background is a long contraction of naval shipbuilding: the number of large yards has continued to decline, skilled workers have left the industry, the Constellation-class frigate program was canceled last November, the Ford has suffered repeated mechanical and electronic problems after entering service, and two sister ships have been delivered years late.
Removing EMALS is a retreat to older technology; building ships overseas is an effort to import foreign capacity. One moves backward at the technical end; the other reaches outward at the industrial end. They look like separate commands, but both arise from the same judgment: the U.S. shipbuilding base can no longer support its existing plans, and the response is not to repair the base but to work around it.
II. Trump and EMALS: A Ten-Year Grudge
Trump’s dissatisfaction with EMALS can be traced to 2017, during his first term. In an interview with Time, he called the new system “bad” and said it “doesn’t have the power of the old steam system,” adding the blunt remark, “We’re all fucking doomed.” The complaint returned repeatedly in his rallies and speeches.
Yet the Associated Press pointed out the irony in this fixation: EMALS was developed precisely to solve the physical limits of steam catapults. Steam launchers control aircraft weight and launch force relatively coarsely; an electromagnetic system can regulate force with precision, launch heavier aircraft, require less maintenance, need fewer sailors to operate, and reserve electrical capacity for future power-hungry systems such as laser weapons.
The commentary account Bao Rong Wanwu Henghe Shui added a sharper line: “EMALS has no boiler; Trump just doesn’t like it.” Shen Yi’s assessment was more direct: “The imperial navy is truly repeating a technical-route flip-flop.”
This is not a technical dispute; it is a byproduct of a power struggle. Trump’s attachment to the “power of the old steam system” comes from personal preference, but the memorandum can be imposed by presidential order rather than naval consensus. Navy leaders have opposed the change for years, while General Atomics, EMALS’s manufacturer, warned that changing direction now would bring “enormous cost, schedule and integration risks.” On the Doris Miller, the catapults and arresting gear are already roughly halfway through construction. When a technical path can be reversed by personal taste, the professional veto has effectively disappeared from the decision chain.
III. From Hundreds of Millions to Billions: A Bill Nobody Wants to Sign
The cost of returning to steam catapults varies with the accounting. The White House memorandum estimates that the design change will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, while The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the additional bill could reach billions.
Changing a system on a ship already this far along in its design is much more complicated than swapping out equipment. The hull layout, steam piping, catapult compartments and elevator systems all have to be redesigned, and each change propagates into the construction schedule for later ships. Trump complained in the memorandum that the Navy “keeps changing the design, which has resulted in increased costs, delays and cancellations” — but the memorandum itself is the largest design change of all.
The manpower arithmetic is no less awkward. EMALS reduces the number of sailors required: aboard the Ford, the number of personnel operating the catapult fell from roughly twelve to fewer than ten. Yet the Navy is struggling to fill its ranks: at the beginning of the year, the fleet had approximately 20,000 vacant positions. Returning to steam catapults means asking a system that is harder to maintain to use more sailors, moving in the opposite direction from the service’s staffing reality.
The Navy is short of people, and Trump’s answer is a system that needs more people. The shipbuilding base is short of capacity, and the accompanying solution is to build ships overseas. Each command addresses what Trump does not like, but neither answers what the Navy is supposed to do.
IV. Building Ships Overseas: A Shipyard Inside the Island Chain
Henghe Shui saw through the overseas-shipbuilding provision immediately: “It is obviously going to be Japan or South Korea. They say ‘build two first, build more in America,’ but the reality is pulling them in. Choosing a shipyard inside the island chain means the U.S. military no longer wants to win.”
The “Finland model” is nominally a framework in which foreign investment in an American yard earns permission to build a limited number of ships abroad. In the face of a capacity gap, however, the investment-for-orders arrangement looks more like a legal fig leaf for an established fact. The U.S. Coast Guard’s medium icebreaker project has already used a similar arrangement.
The contrast with the rest of the world is even sharper. China’s aircraft carriers use electromagnetic catapults, and France has announced that its future carrier will use an electromagnetic system. While the rest of the world moves forward, the U.S. Navy has been ordered to move backward.
With one memorandum, Trump has done two things: return the U.S. carrier force’s technical path to the steam era and outsource part of the shipbuilding-capacity gap to allied yards. The first is a symbolic recovery of tradition; the second is a substantive admission of failure. Together, they are the plainest description of the U.S. naval-industrial base: unwilling to use new technology and unable to build enough of the old technology.
V. Known Contradictions
- The memorandum frames removing the catapult system as a way to save money and restore capacity; the Navy and General Atomics say the change will add billions of dollars and delay delivery.
- Construction of the Doris Miller’s launch equipment is already roughly halfway complete, according to General Atomics, while the White House memorandum demands a removal plan within two months — how can equipment that is already partly installed simply be “removed”?
VI. Mark Kelly’s Rebuttal — The View of a Carrier Pilot Turned Senator (Increment, 2026-08-14)
On August 14, Henghe Shui relayed a comment from U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, adding a “professional witness” to the technical reversal: “Trump doesn’t know anything about this stuff... He is a failed real-estate developer who went bankrupt multiple times, barely successful. He shouldn’t be telling the Navy what systems to put on an aircraft carrier.”
Kelly’s authority comes from a career spanning two domains in which Trump has no comparable experience: he flew on four Space Shuttle missions, commanded the Space Shuttle, served for 25 years in the U.S. Navy, flew from aircraft carriers, and retired as a Navy captain before entering politics after his wife, Gabby Giffords, survived a public shooting. In other words, someone who has actually flown aboard a Space Shuttle and operated from aircraft carriers is evaluating someone who has never been aboard one.
The earlier sections recorded the technical opposition from General Atomics and doubts inside the Navy. Kelly adds a different layer: when the critic has both spaceflight and carrier-aviation experience, the dispute moves from “which technology is better” toward a question of legitimacy — who is qualified to decide? A person who has landed a Space Shuttle is much harder to dismiss when pointing out that EMALS “has no boiler.”
Mark Kelly’s intervention pulls the steam-catapult argument back to the question of authority. EMALS’s engineering case — precise force control, easier maintenance, lower manpower requirements and reserved power for future weapons — disappears in the face of Trump’s memorandum because the decision is based on personal preference rather than engineering. Kelly’s “shouldn’t be telling the Navy” charge complements General Atomics’s warning that construction is halfway complete and changing direction now would bring huge risks: one speaks to outside interference, the other to the cost of that interference.