{"id":2132,"date":"2026-08-18T22:12:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T22:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2026-08-18T22:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T22:12:55","slug":"what-trump-wants-for-the-navy-is-more-steam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2132","title":{"rendered":"What Trump Wants for the Navy Is More Steam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

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Over the past nine years, Donald Trump has returned again and again to the concept of steam power. He loves the way that steam propels fighter jets off the decks of aircraft carriers, and he laments that the Navy has pivoted to electromagnetic launchers in its new ships. \u201cThat beautiful scene,\u201d he rhapsodized at a rally in 2023: \u201cThat steam goes off, and that plane gets thrown the hell off; the power, beautiful. And it\u2019s cheap!\u201d<\/p>\n

By The Guardian<\/i>\u2019s accounting, Trump has spoken publicly about these steam catapults every year since 2017, when he claimed to have told the crew of the USS Gerald Ford that they\u2019d be \u201cgoing to goddamned steam.\u201d The Gerald Ford is the only one of the Navy\u2019s 11 operational aircraft carriers that\u2019s not currently equipped with steam catapults. Instead, it uses the more modern Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which runs on electricity from the vessel\u2019s two nuclear reactors. Trump\u2019s wish for the Gerald Ford to return to steam was never fulfilled; the ship was already the water. Until last week, future ships were set to use electromagnetic propulsion too. But on Thursday, Trump ordered one of the Navy\u2019s planned carriers, the USS Doris Miller, to be outfitted with steam catapults instead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a potential logistical nightmare. Although the ship isn\u2019t expected to be assembled until later this year, its parts are already under construction. Experts have said that returning to steam power at this stage in the ship\u2019s development could dramatically increase the cost to taxpayers and delay the building process. The Doris Miller won\u2019t be completed until the mid-2030s, and a future administration may backpedal. But the fact that the president remains so dedicated to the idea says something about his commitment to aesthetics over strategy\u2014and to remaking the military according to his personal preferences.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s order gives officials 60 days to figure out the details, but plans for the Doris Miller are already under way. General Atomics, the contractor responsible for the ship\u2019s EMALS system, released a statement explaining that \u201cnearly 50 percent of production\u201d is complete and warning that \u201cchanging course now would introduce significant cost, schedule and integration risks.\u201d Electrical infrastructure can\u2019t be easily swapped for steam once a ship\u2019s layout has been mapped. Areas on the Doris Miller that might have housed pipes have been designated for other things. Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Hudson Institute, told me that such an extreme redesign of the ship\u2019s interior could cost the Navy billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

EMALS isn\u2019t perfect. Its development was lengthy, even by the Navy\u2019s standards; the Gerald Ford, on which it debuted, cost the U.S. billions of dollars more than expected. But the investment has now been made. EMALS has been successfully launching planes for years. Part of Trump\u2019s somewhat-opaque argument against the new system is that it\u2019s a fancy, unnecessarily complex replacement for the old-fashioned way of doing things. \u201cDigital,\u201d he said in 2017, is \u201cvery complicated. You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out.\u201d Last month, he claimed to have been told that only \u201cgeniuses\u201d from MIT could work on it.<\/p>\n

Trump is right to suggest that when it comes to military technology, flashier doesn\u2019t always mean better. After all, Iran\u2019s cheap drones have consistently challenged the far richer and better-equipped United States. But steam isn\u2019t as efficient as he thinks. Today, Clark told me, electromagnetism is a more reliable way to get a plane into the air, requiring fewer repairs in the aggregate. This is one reason that, despite the cost of developing EMALS, Trump\u2019s claim that steam is a \u201ccheap\u201d alternative doesn\u2019t necessarily hold up; a ship that requires fewer repairs may require fewer taxpayer dollars in the long run.<\/p>\n

The president hasn\u2019t explained why he chose to make such a cumbersome change at this particular moment. Other, more pressing issues could likely use his attention: A shortage of certain kinds of munition, for example, has put the U.S. at a disadvantage in the war with Iran. And the Navy has lately been facing criticism over the conditions aboard another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed in the Middle East for almost nine months. Sailors have reported food shortages, degraded living conditions, and mental-health struggles. The president dismissed CNN\u2019s report about conditions on the ship as \u201cfake news,\u201d but Admiral Brad Cooper, who\u2019s overseeing the war in Iran, acknowledged the mental-health concerns on Sunday. The USS George Washington is now set to relieve the carrier.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s recurring fascination with steam reflects his broad interest in how things should look rather than how things should work. He\u2019s reportedly considering asking the Navy to make another design change: shifting the command center on new aircraft carriers farther forward so that the ships can look more like World War II\u2013era vessels. The current placement of the command center at the back of the ships \u201cwas done for efficiency and safety,\u201d three current and former U.S. officials told The<\/i> Washington Post<\/i>. In December, Trump announced the development of a new class of battleship, to be built according to his own preferences. He wants it bigger and more attractive, and has even given it his own name\u2014the \u201cTrump class.\u201d (Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new ships could cost Americans about $275 billion in all.) \u201cI am a very aesthetic person,\u201d Trump said at the time.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one way to put it. Since returning to office, he\u2019s demolished the White House\u2019s East Wing to build a gilded ballroom, paved over the Rose Garden, and planned to put an imperial arch near the Lincoln Memorial. The president is apparently on a mission to align American institutions with his own taste\u2014and to bulldoze what\u2019s already been built to do so. The \u201cbeautiful scene\u201d of a steam catapult may please Trump in much the same way that these other forays into design and architecture do. But the U.S. is at war. It\u2019s probably not the best time to delegate the Navy\u2019s resources to a vanity project.<\/p>\n

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