U.S. President Donald Trump has allowed the Navy to build ships overseas and ordered it to abandon a complex system for launching jet fighters from its aircraft carriers and instead return to using steam catapults, the White House said on Thursday.
Trump signed a national security memorandum directing the change, which would require the fourth vessel in the Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers to abandon the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) used on the first three vessels. The design change is expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
