President Donald Trump has directed the US Navy to remove the advanced Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from its newest Ford-class aircraft carriers and revert to older steam-powered catapults — a move that could cost billions of dollars and reverse years of technological progress.
The directive, issued Thursday, gives the Pentagon and Navy two months to present plans for replacing both EMALS and the electromagnetic weapons elevators on the Ford-class carriers. Trump has long been a vocal critic of the magnetically powered catapult system, despite it being a cornerstone of the Navy’s next-generation carrier design.
The mandate comes as the US military faces intense competition for funding from Congress. Critics argue that steam catapults require more sailors to operate, are harder to maintain, and offer less precise launch control compared to the electromagnetic system. Navy officials now face the complex engineering challenge of retrofitting multi-billion dollar ships that were designed around the EMALS architecture.
