Netherlands pushes back against US bill targeting ASML sales to China
Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma visited Washington to oppose the MATCH Act, which would ban ASML from selling advanced chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms.
Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma traveled to Washington this week to meet with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and lawmakers to voice opposition to the MATCH Act. The proposed legislation would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, hitting ASML particularly hard. ASML, headquartered in the Netherlands, is Europe's most valuable company and the world's sole manufacturer of cutting-edge lithography machines used to produce advanced AI chips.
“It’s exceptional that I’m coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress,” Sjoerdsma told Bloomberg after the meetings. “The stakes for the Netherlands may be very high.” China accounts for 19% of ASML’s net system sales.
The MATCH Act goes further than existing export controls by extending restrictions to ASML’s deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion machines, on top of the long-standing ban on its most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools for China. As ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet explained to TechCrunch in May, Chinese customers can currently only purchase older-generation DUV tools—equipment first shipped about a decade ago—which the MATCH Act would now also prohibit.
Introduced in April, the bill has yet to face a full vote in the House or Senate. According to Bloomberg, it would likely need to be folded into a larger legislative package to pass.
