{"id":1468,"date":"2026-08-14T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1468"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:09:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:09:00","slug":"trump-spending-billions-to-revert-aircraft-carriers-to-steam-catapults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1468","title":{"rendered":"Trump Spending Billions to Revert Aircraft Carriers to Steam Catapults"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a <\/span><\/i>quick donation<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Read more If Trump Has His Way, 20,000 Kids Could Face Immigration Court Without Lawyers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

President Donald Trump has ordered a major redesign of U.S. aircraft carriers to revert to a steam catapult system for launching fighter jets, a change expected to cost billions of dollars in order to use technology that\u2019s more than 15 years out of date.<\/p>\n

In a presidential memorandum signed on Thursday, Trump ordered the Navy to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from the newest class of aircraft carriers, the Gerald R. Ford class, and instead use the older steam powered catapults that system replaced. The change would affect the fourth ship in the class, the Doris Miller, as well as other ships yet to be built.<\/p>\n

Trump has long fixated on steam catapults and has frequently brought up his idea to dispose of the electromagnetic system, which dates back to his first presidential term. His reasoning is unclear \u2014 but appears to simply stem from his inability to understand how EMALS works.<\/p>\n

In an interview with TIME <\/em>in 2017, Trump railed against the \u201cdigital catapult system,\u201d recounting an encounter with a soldier who told him that the system was \u201cnot good,\u201d but that the steam is also \u201cjust brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it\u2019s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out,\u201d Trump said at the time. \u201cNow they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be \u2014 \u2018Sir, we\u2019re staying with digital.\u2019 I said no you\u2019re not. You going to goddamned steam.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last U.S. aircraft carrier built with steam catapults entered the fleet in 2009. The technology has since been updated because the electromagnetic system is more reliable and less expensive to maintain, experts say. EMALS is also more efficient, requiring less space and far fewer sailors to operate, while being able to launch aircraft more quickly.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Handpicked Kennedy Center Board Tries to Put His Name Back on Building<\/a><\/p>\n

On top of that, EMALS are able to launch a wider range of aircraft compared to the steam launchers, especially with regard to the newer generations of aircraft.<\/p>\n

The change will require a massive overhaul of the current design, experts say, since the steam catapult system has drastically different infrastructural requirements. Work was already halfway done on the EMALS for the Doris Miller, according to the company that makes them, General Atomics.<\/p>\n

Experts have expressed confusion over the change, saying that Trump lacks the knowledge to be tampering with military designs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a master\u2019s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot, and even I wouldn\u2019t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships,\u201d Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) told the Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The change is just the latest report of massive waste of taxpayer dollars by Trump, between his nearly $1 billion renovations to the White House to his war on Iran that has killed 3,500 Iranians and cost tens of billions in operational costs while leading to higher energy prices. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has requested Congress pass a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget for next year \u2014 a massive increase from this year\u2019s roughly $1 trillion military budget.<\/p>\n

Read more Alito\u2019s Assets in Fossil Fuels Have Grown by Up to $2.9 Million, Analysis Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s long hated the modern electromagnetic catapults, seemingly because he simply doesn\u2019t understand how they work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Spending Billions to Revert Aircraft Carriers to Steam Catapults - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1468\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Spending Billions to Revert Aircraft Carriers to Steam Catapults - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump\u2019s long hated the modern electromagnetic catapults, seemingly because he simply doesn\u2019t understand how they work.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1468\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-14T17:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Spending Billions to Revert Aircraft Carriers to Steam Catapults\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-14T17:09:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468\"},\"wordCount\":604,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/2e2afee06904bd77afd32e86b143ce03.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1468\",\"name\":\"Trump Spending Billions to Revert Aircraft Carriers to Steam Catapults - 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