Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma recently traveled to Washington to engage with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress. His primary objective was to voice opposition to the proposed MATCH Act, a legislative initiative designed to prohibit Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment. This bill is projected to have a particularly severe impact on ASML, a key Dutch company.
ASML, headquartered in the Netherlands, holds the distinction of being Europe's most valuable company. It is also the world's sole manufacturer of the highly sophisticated lithography machines essential for producing cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips.
Following his meetings, Minister Sjoerdsma conveyed to Bloomberg the gravity of his visit, stating, "It’s exceptional that I’m coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress. The stakes for the Netherlands may be very high."
China represents a significant market for ASML, accounting for 19% of its net system sales. The MATCH Act proposes a substantial escalation of existing export controls, extending restrictions to ASML’s deep ultraviolet immersion machines. This would be in addition to the long-standing prohibition on its most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools reaching China.
As ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet informed TechCrunch in May, the deep ultraviolet tools currently available to China are older-generation models, having first shipped approximately a decade ago. It is precisely these machines that the MATCH Act would now render off-limits.
Introduced in April, the bill has not yet undergone a full vote in either the House or the Senate. Bloomberg suggests that its passage would likely necessitate its inclusion within a broader legislative package.
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