Trump's Aircraft Carrier Changes Draw Warnings of Higher Costs, Delays

President Donald Trump's push to reshape the U.S. Navy's newest aircraft carriers is drawing warnings from defense analysts, contractors and former officials who say the proposed changes could increase costs, delay construction and reverse design decisions the Navy spent years implementing.

The concerns come after Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the Pentagon and Navy to develop a plan within 60 days to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators on the USS Doris Miller, an upcoming Ford-class aircraft carrier, with steam catapults and hydraulic systems.

The debate intensified after the Washington Post reported on Saturday that Navy officials are also evaluating the feasibility of moving the island, or command tower, on Ford-class aircraft carriers farther forward on the ship to better align with Trump's preferences for the ships' appearance. Current and former officials told the newspaper that such a redesign could require significant time and money. Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer and defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, described moving the island as "a major redesign" that would be "very disruptive."

General Atomics, the manufacturer of EMALS, has warned that changing course on the USS Doris Miller could have significant consequences because work on the launch system is already well underway. The company said in a statement that catapult and arresting gear production for the vessel is roughly 50 percent complete and that abandoning the system now would create "significant cost, schedule, and integration risks." The company received a contract worth nearly $1.2 billion in 2023 related to the carrier's launch and recovery systems.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute and former Air Force officer, told Politico that the modifications sought by Trump are "highly unusual and disruptive for the Navy," particularly because they are changes the service itself did not request.

Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut, criticized the proposal in a Thursday post on X. "I've launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times," Kelly wrote, adding that despite his aviation and engineering background, he would not tell Navy engineers how to design carrier systems. In a later interview with The Hill, the Arizona Democrat said redesigning ships already under construction would "probably" cost billions of dollars. Kelly added: "Donald Trump knows nothing about this stuff. Not in any world would I suggest to the Navy to change the design of some system on a ship at this point."

The Associated Press reported that EMALS reduced the number of sailors needed to operate catapults aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford from roughly a dozen to two.