Donald Trump orders redesign of aircraft carrier, builders warn it’ll cost billions and cause ‘significant cost, schedule, and integration risks’

Donald Trump can credibly claim expertise in real estate, TV show presenting, interior design, posting on social media, and winning presidential elections. Now he’s apparently attempting to add naval engineer to that list of accomplishments.

Last night, Trump signed an executive order directing that billion-dollar alterations be made to the design of the US’s upcoming aircraft carrier, the USS Doris Miller, which has been under construction since August 2021 and is projected to be delivered in February 2034.

Now Trump has weighed in on its design, personally instructing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to cancel all plans to use modern electromagnetic catapults to launch fighter jets and replace them with the 1950s-tech steam catapults, apparently due entirely to his own personal preference.

“Digital. They have digital. What is digital?”

Trump has a particular dislike for modern electromagnetic catapults, telling Time Magazine (via The Guardian) as long ago as 2017 that, “It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out.” Since then, he’s repeatedly returned to the topic in various stump speeches, once claiming a 25-year Navy veteran told him, “‘Steam is better, sir. We can fix it with a hammer and a blowtorch.”

In addition, in December 2025 Trump proudly unveiled the “Trump-class battleship”, a nuclear-armed vessel he envisages being part of a “golden fleet”.

The Wall Street Journal reported that there’s been historic pushback to Trump’s wishes, saying senior military officials “have resisted the move due to the enormous expense of tearing out such a complex system that was integral to the design”, which they report will run into the billions.

That sentiment is echoed by General Atomics, the company building the electromagnetic launch system. They told the WSJ that as work on the ship is now quite far along, “changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks”.

Somewhat blunter criticism came from Senator Mark Kelly, who said he has personal experience of using this tech, has the right qualifications, was a test pilot, and still wouldn’t dream of telling Navy engineers how to build a ship:

This executive order relating to aircraft carriers comes during a week where the USS Abraham Lincoln has been in the spotlight due to the reportedly mental deterioration of its crew, with families of those on board saying that sailors are trying to throw themselves overboard.