Trump Seeks Executive Order Reinstating Steam Catapults On Aircraft Carriers
President of the United States Donald Trump said Tuesday that he intended to sign an executive order requiring the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers return to using steam catapults to launch aircraft, claiming that the USS Gerald R. Ford’s adoption of an electromagnetic launch system for aircraft was done “for the sake of changing” during an official visit to Japan.
“Catapults, which is better, electric or steam? I’m gonna put in an order, seriously,” said Trump to sailors of the USS George Washington during his visit to the aircraft carrier docked in Yokosuka Naval Base. “They’re spending billions to build stupid electric. And the problem when it breaks you have to send up to MIT, get the most brilliant people in the world and fly them out. It’s ridiculous, the steam, they say they can fix it with a hammer and a blowtorch, and it works just as well if not better.”
“The new thing is magnets, so instead of using hydraulic, you can be hit by lightning and it’s fine. You take a little glass of water and you drop it on magnets. I don’t know what’s going to happen,” continued Trump in an apparent criticism of the new elevator system also introduced on the Ford. Continuing, “They spent $993 million on the catapults trying to get them to work. And they had steam, which works so beautifully and it has for 50 years, right? So we’re going to go back.”
During his first term, Trump criticized the Ford’s electromagnetic launch system and claimed he would order a return to steam catapults, but no changes were made by the end of his first term.
It is not immediately clear how an executive order would have any binding effects on the three Ford-class aircraft carriers currently under construction. According to the National Archives and Records Administration’s Federal Register, Trump has signed over 200 executive orders since his inauguration on January 20 this year, with the number of executive orders signed during his first 100 days in office the highest of any President in the past 40 years.
Earlier in his speech, Trump reiterated his statements to military leaders in September that the United States would no longer be “politically correct” in conflict. “We’re going to defend our country any way we have to, and that’s usually not the politically correct way. From now on, if we’re in a war, we’re going to win the war. We go in, we blast the hell out of the other country – shouldn’t have gone in – by the way, if you don’t go in, that’s even better. We don’t have to go in – peace through strength.”
Trump also claimed the U.S. was “finally waging war on the cartels”. “We’re waging war like they’ve never seen before, and we’re going to win that battle”. He added that it would be “very easy” to “stop the drugs coming in by land” to the United States, saying that maritime drug trafficking had “almost completely stopped” as a result of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats.