Washington DC - President Donald Trump directed that all future aircraft carriers scrap their advanced systems for launching warplanes and instead return to "proven" steam catapult technologies.
Trump made the announcement on Thursday as part of a national security presidential memorandum to "fix critical long-term issues in Navy shipbuilding and ship repair programs and restore capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base."
In the memorandum, he bemoaned "an atrophied shipbuilding industrial base" which he said made building and repairing warships slower and more expensive.
His order directs the Pentagon to draft a plan to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for forthcoming aircraft carriers.
The first ship affected will be the USS Doris Miller, the fourth Gerald R. Ford-class carrier. It has a projected delivery date of 2034.
Changing the catapult systems will likely cost billions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute think tank. Operating and maintaining steam systems would also require more sailors.
General Atomics, the company that won the contract to build electromagnetic catapults for the Doris Miller, said the decision to switch systems "warrants careful reconsideration."
Trump had complained about purported shortcomings of EMALS as early as 2017, when he said it was "not good" and "doesn't have the power" of steam catapults.
Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and retired US Navy combat pilot, mocked Trump's order as unnecessary meddling in military operations.
"I've launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master's degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot, and even I wouldn't suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships," Kelly wrote on X.
"Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best – ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bulls**t," he continued.