The Chinese use a different electromagnetic system based on DC power and capacitors, while the US system is AC and uses flywheels. I know nothing about the topic. I can find reading from sources in China that claim theirs is vastly better, and sources outside of that which claim China's claims are exaggerated. For whatever it's worth, the French are buying our system directly.

As far as the original post... First, I can't find what specifically has retriggered the debate, but it has indeed come back up recently. Articles about Trump's statements on the matter are all dated back to when he made them. He doesn't seem to have made any new ones. All the discussions I find, while recently dated, simply repeat the original debates. There's nothing new here that I can find. It looks like folks just decided to discuss it again.

Trump made his statements, the controversy was explored, the topic went away. Nothing happens without congressional funding, and as Dean notes, we're still building EMALS. Nearly any in depth article will tell you that going back to steam will cost more than twice as much as continuing with EMALS. Congress may bicker over it, but actually acting and funding it looks extremely unlikely. This is then where the topic died originally. Nothing happened because we're too committed to EMLAS at this point, and the costs of undoing it are worse.

Since no new information is evident to me, this new discussion should end the same way. It should die off when folks get bored, and we will carry on. Or, we'll actually create a movement to undo it which will literally undo the Navy. The actual costs and delays will destroy the US carrier building industry. Such a movement then gaining the necessary momentum is not just an uphill battle, it's a vertical climb. I don't like to predict the future, but the odds are very long. If anyone can present new information which may have retriggered this debate, I would be interested. But, as long as I find "the same old same old," I can't see this amounting to anything. It should drift away like the last time.