President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S.
Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.
The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.
“You’re going to goddamned steam,” Trump said at the time. While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest Chinese aircraft carriers employ electromagnetic catapults and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier. General Atomics said the work on the Doris Miller’s catapults and arresting gear was already halfway complete and said “changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks. The move comes as Congress will weigh the necessary budget and funding bills that the Trump administration has said they need to fund the Pentagon and the Iran war. Hegseth said the supplemental war funding is an “urgent, necessary” injection of money, and with Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget a generational investment in the military. In February, the Navy touted the system in a press release that said it allowed the USS Ford to launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its predecessor, the Nimitz-class ships.
The topic has frequently come up since then at rallies and other events.
