Is the "Ford" class aircraft carrier No. 4 renamed "Trump"?

[Global Times Special Correspondent Chen Yang] After news broke that the U.S. Navy is considering renaming the latest "Ford" class aircraft carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to USS Trump, there was an uproar in American public opinion.

The U.S. website "The Hill" reported on the 22nd that the name of World War II hero Doris Miller will be removed from the name of the next U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, while the name of current President Trump has been included on the list of alternatives. According to CNN, the U.S. Navy has been discussing the renaming of the "Ford" class aircraft carrier CVN-81. The report cited sources saying that the future name of the carrier has not yet been determined, but there has indeed been a suggestion within the U.S. Navy to rename the carrier to USS Trump. "Naming a U.S. aircraft carrier after the sitting president is indeed an unprecedented move." NBC also quoted two U.S. officials saying that the leadership of the U.S. Navy is considering naming the carrier after Trump, and discussions on this matter have been ongoing for several months.

According to the U.S. military website, Doris Miller served on the battleship USS West Virginia in the Pacific Fleet during World War II. Due to the racial segregation policies at the time, he, as a Black sailor, could only perform logistical duties. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS West Virginia was heavily damaged, and under conditions where command was paralyzed, Doris Miller first rescued the injured captain and then operated anti-aircraft machine guns, firing continuously at Japanese planes until he ran out of ammunition. To boost the morale of the U.S. military, which had been low due to the Pearl Harbor incident, Doris Miller was established as a hero of the U.S. Navy for these deeds. In 1942, U.S. Navy Admiral Nimitz personally awarded Doris Miller the Navy Cross, making him the first Black sailor in the U.S. military to receive this prestigious honor.

The U.S. Navy had previously named a frigate after "Miller," and in 2020, the U.S. Navy further decided to name the latest "Ford" class aircraft carrier "Doris Miller."

CNN reported that even before the media disclosed discussions about the name of this new aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy had stopped using "USS Doris Miller" internally and instead referred to the "Ford" class carrier as CVN-81. The report noted that Trump's latest signed National Security Presidential Memorandum also only mentioned CVN-81, which requires the Pentagon and the Navy to change the design, replacing the electromagnetic catapult system for subsequent models of the "Ford" class aircraft carriers (starting from CVN-81) with steam catapults.

The military website stated that as compensation, the U.S. military may use Doris Miller's name on other naval vessels and posthumously award him the highest level of the Congressional Medal of Honor and other honors.

The reason the U.S. Navy is eager to finalize the name for CVN-81 is that the ship is scheduled to lay its keel by the end of this year, and according to convention, the name is usually not changed after the keel-laying ceremony. According to reports from the U.S. Naval Institute website, due to construction delays, this new aircraft carrier may not be operational until 2034.

The U.S. Navy's consideration of naming the new aircraft carrier after the sitting President Trump has sparked significant controversy domestically. This is because the already commissioned "Nimitz" and "Ford" class aircraft carriers are indeed mostly named after former U.S. presidents, such as the "Abraham Lincoln," "George H.W. Bush," "Ronald Reagan," and "George Washington" of the "Nimitz" class, but all of these carriers share a common characteristic: they were named after presidents who had already left office. Trump has no military service experience, and the practice of using the name of a sitting president to replace a World War II hero in naming the latest aircraft carrier has led to ridicule and criticism in American public opinion. Some American netizens criticized on social media that the naming of U.S. aircraft carriers has "degenerated from 'commemorating naval values and honoring heroes' to 'presidential campaign paraphernalia'."

What worries American public opinion even more is that Trump is trying to change the U.S. Navy according to his personal preferences. Previously, he strongly promoted the construction of the "Trump" class battleship, which is widely regarded as "a product that is behind the times," and now he is also demanding to abandon the more advanced electromagnetic catapult system starting from CVN-81 in favor of steam catapults, and to move the aft island, which can improve the operational efficiency of carrier-based aircraft, to the middle of the hull.      

Some analysts believe that these modifications will not only add tens of billions of dollars in costs and delay the construction schedule of U.S. Navy vessels but will also have a significant negative impact on the long-term planning of the U.S. Navy.