Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma traveled to Washington to oppose the MATCH Act, a bill that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment. With ASML the Netherlands’ most valuable company and the sole maker of advanced litho
For the Dutch trade minister, the trip to Washington wasn’t about diplomacy in the abstract. It was about a specific bill that could reshape what machines a key European supplier is allowed to ship—and how hard the Netherlands could feel it.
Sjoerd Sjoerdsma. the Netherlands’ trade minister. visited Washington this week to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress. His goal: oppose the MATCH Act, legislation that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment. The move, he argued, would land particularly hard on ASML.
ASML is based in the Netherlands. It is Europe’s most valuable company, and it is the only maker in the world of sophisticated lithography machines used to produce cutting-edge 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.”
The concern centers on how far the MATCH Act would extend existing export controls. China accounts for 19% of ASML’s net system sales. Under the bill. curbs would go further than current controls: it would extend restrictions to ASML’s deep ultraviolet immersion machines. on top of the long-standing ban on its most advanced extreme ultraviolet. or EUV. tools reaching China.
ASML’s own leadership has previously laid out the practical effect of the current rules. In May. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet told TechCrunch that what China can currently buy are older-generation deep ultraviolet tools—equipment first shipped about a decade ago. Those are the same machines the MATCH Act would now relegate off limits.
The timing of the legislation also matters. The bill was introduced in April and hasn’t yet faced a full House or Senate vote. Bloomberg notes it would likely need to be folded into a larger package to pass.
Right now. the Netherlands’ pushback is aimed at a very specific outcome: keeping the boundaries of chip equipment access from tightening again. after the already-existing limits on ASML’s EUV machines. If the MATCH Act clears the next hurdles. ASML would face a tougher market reality—one tied directly to how advanced semiconductor supply chains are built for the AI era.
MATCH Act ASML Sjoerd Sjoerdsma Howard Lutnick Dutch trade semiconductor equipment chip export controls EUV deep ultraviolet immersion lithography machines AI chips