# Power Blocs

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The Trump Administration's Navy Overhaul: Foreign-Built Ships and a Return to Steam Catapults What Changed On August 13, 2026, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum, titled "Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base," ordering a sweeping overhaul of Navy shipbuilding that includes opening the door to foreign-built warships, establishing a fifth public naval shipyard and replacing key technologies planned for the Navy's newest aircraft carrier. The order calls on the Pentagon to use foreign shipyards for three specific vessel classes: frigates for anti-submarine, surface warfare and convoy escort duties, plus two auxiliary classes — roll-on/roll-off cargo vessels and tankers. The memo directs the Secretary of War, within 60 days, to deliver a plan to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for construction of CVN-81, the future USS Doris Miller. The Stated Rationale The White House argues the Navy "has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations," and that a lack of shipyard capacity and competition has produced large backlogs across six major programs. On catapults, the rationale is partly personal: Trump called EMALS "very complicated" during a 2017 visit to USS Gerald R. Ford, saying "you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out." But it also rests on a real record of documented problems: a 2018 Bloomberg report citing Pentagon testers found EMALS suffered a critical failure roughly every 455 launches during early at-sea trials, nine times the Navy's target rate, and the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation stated in its FY2025 report that EMALS and the arresting gear "continue to adversely affect sortie generation and flight operations," with heavy reliance on off-ship contractor support remaining a challenge. A Contested Technical Case The picture is more mixed than the memo suggests. EMALS gives Ford a 30 percent higher sortie generation rate than the preceding Nimitz class and allows for fewer crew, thanks to less plumbing and fewer pressure vessels. During a 326-day deployment ending in May 2026 — the longest by a US carrier since Vietnam — Ford's air wing recorded more than 12,200 EMALS launches, and the ship had completed 36,863 total EMALS launches by March 2026. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery called reverting to steam "illogical, inefficient and a waste of money," noting EMALS reduces wear on aircraft, weighs less, and uses significantly less energy, water and manpower than steam. Because the Ford class was engineered from the outset around extensive electrification, replacing EMALS on a ship already under construction is considerably more complex than swapping one catapult type for another, and the redesign is expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Industrial Base, Alliances and Legal Uncertainty Domestic industry has pushed back on the foreign-build provision: the Shipbuilders Council of America warned that "every hull built abroad is demand, jobs, and industrial capability diverted from American shipyards this administration pledged to rebuild." Congress is split — the Senate Armed Services Committee's draft FY2027 defense bill would strip the presidential waiver authority the memo relies on, while allowing Pentagon purchases of foreign-built auxiliary ships, and a separate House provision would bar foreign construction of warships and logistics vessels outright, so the policy's staying power is genuinely unsettled. Any waiver still requires congressional notification, with a 30-day wait before a contract can be signed. On the alliance side, the approach borrows the "Finland Model" used for medium icebreakers, and Australia's Austal has already drawn a takeover bid from South Korea's Hanwha Group as it expands in the US defense market — pointing toward deeper industrial ties with allies, though officials acknowledge integrating a foreign hull with US combat systems "from the keel up" is technically difficult. Global Naval Balance The reversal cuts against the direction of America's chief competitor: China already builds roughly half of the world's commercial ships, and its newest carrier, Fujian, also uses electromagnetic launch technology — meaning Washington is stepping back from a technology Beijing and Paris (France's navy also selected EMALS) are advancing. Whether this becomes durable policy depends on Hegseth's 60-day catapult redesign plan, a 120-day siting study for the fifth shipyard, and how the FY2027 NDAA resolves the waiver fight in Congress.   Sources USNI News – "New White House Memo Calls for Foreign-Built Warships, Return to Steam Catapults on Ford Carriers" – https://news.usni.org/2026/08/13/new-white-house-memo-calls-for-foreign-built-warships-return-to-steam-catapults-on-ford-carriers Reuters (via U.S. News) – "Trump Allows Navy to Build Ships Abroad, Orders Return to Steam Catapults on Carriers" – https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2026-08-13/trump-orders-navy-to-tear-out-jet-launch-system-return-to-steam-catapults gCaptain – "Trump Opens Door to Foreign-Built Warships in Major Navy Shipbuilding Overhaul" – https://gcaptain.com/trump-opens-door-to-foreign-built-warships-in-major-navy-shipbuilding-overhaul/ The War Zone (TWZ) – "Bringing Back Steam Catapults On Carriers Is A Huge Risk" – https://www.twz.com/sea/bringing-back-steam-catapults-on-carriers-is-a-huge-risk Related YouTube Videos "Trump Orders Navy to Go Back to Steam Catapults" – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzf5GRX-t5g Perun – "The New U.S. Navy Shipbuilding Plan – Nuclear Battleships, FF(X) & America's Naval Buildup" – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlQb8xBcvM "The Shipbuilding Crisis Threatening U.S. Naval Power" (GAO congressional testimony) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WQioW5nWro