Europe Pushes Back on US Chip War with China

Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma visited Washington this week to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress to oppose the MATCH Act, a bill that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, and one that would hit ASML especially hard. ASML, based in the Netherlands, is Europe's most valuable company and the only maker in the world of the sophisticated lithography machines that are used to make 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." China accounts for 19% of ASML's net system sales. The MATCH Act would go further than existing controls, extending curbs 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. As ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet told TechCrunch in May, what China can currently buy are older-generation deep ultraviolet tools — gear first shipped about a decade ago — the same machines the MATCH Act would now relegate off limits.

The bill, introduced in April, 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. The MATCH Act's potential impact on the global semiconductor industry cannot be overstated. If passed, it would further escalate tensions between the US, Europe, and China, potentially disrupting the delicate balance of the global chip supply chain.

For ASML, this could mean a significant loss of revenue, as China is a key market for the company's products. The bill's implications also raise questions about the long-term viability of the US's strategy to restrict China's access to advanced chip technology. As the global chip industry continues to evolve, one thing is clear: the stakes are high, and the consequences of this bill will be far-reaching.