The U.S. Navy has begun a review of the design and costs of the Ford-class aircraft carrier, a decision that Navy Secretary John Phelan said Tuesday is aimed at verifying both the systems and their price tag and that could affect what comes next. Speaking to reporters, Phelan said the review is intended to examine “the costs of the designs and the systems to make sure that they make sense” and that the carriers will have “all the systems and requirements that we want going forward,” with the effort expected to be completed next month.

When asked whether the review could lead to canceling future Ford-class carriers, Phelan said only that “it’s too early to say, but we will have carriers.” He said his approach reflects “the Ronald Reagan school of ‘trust and verify,’” and said the assessment will include looking into the Ford’s ability to launch and retrieve aircraft.

The review arrives amid years of criticism from President Donald Trump over technology used on high-end carriers, including the Ford-class magnetic catapults. In remarks in the Oval Office last year, Trump said the magnetic catapults “didn’t work,” according to the Associated Press report of Phelan’s comments.

AP reported that the USS Gerald R. Ford has been on a record-setting deployment of more than 300 days since June 2025, during which the carrier participated in two actions by the Trump administration: the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the war against Iran. Navy officials have argued that the Ford-class design is tied to performance advantages, and the Navy’s statement provided Tuesday praised the Ford-class carrier as “a battle-proven design” that can launch aircraft at a faster rate than the older Nimitz-class carriers and supports increased “combat power and ability to maintain high-tempo global strike operations” across three parts of the world.

Phelan said he wanted the Navy to review the data used to support those claims, including information related to launch and retrieval performance. He also described the magnetic catapults as central to what sets the Ford apart from Nimitz-class ships, saying the magnetic system puts less stress on aircraft, requires less maintenance, and reduces the ship’s need for fresh water compared with steam-powered variants.

In addition to the Ford’s operational record, the procurement picture is also shifting in the Pentagon’s budgeting materials. AP reported that Navy budget documents made public Tuesday did not list Ford-class aircraft carriers among the ships the Navy planned to buy; instead, the documents used the broader term “aircraft carrier,” while naming other classes by class name, including Columbia-class submarines and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Phelan said the Navy has three other Ford-class carriers under construction: the USS John F. Kennedy, the USS Enterprise and the USS Dorie Millier. He also said the review will examine the next two carriers—identified as planned but not yet contracted—named USS William Jefferson Clinton and USS George W. Bush by the Biden administration.

The Navy review also intersects with Trump’s push for a separate, new surface-ship program. AP reported that Trump has rolled out a warship design dubbed the Trump-class battleship, estimated to cost more than $17 billion—about $4 billion more than Ford-class carriers—with the Navy not planning to pay for the first ship in the new class, the USS Defiant, until the 2028 budget year. Phelan told reporters that the current cost for the Trump-class ship is an “early initial estimate,” and he said he expected the cost to fall as the design is refined and further ships are built, adding that he did not rule out the ship being powered by a nuclear reactor, which he said would significantly drive up costs.