Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma Warns of High Stakes for the Netherlands Over MATCH Act

The MATCH Act, a bill that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, has sparked concerns for ASML, Europe's most valuable company, and the only maker of cutting-edge AI chips.

Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma visited Washington this week to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress to express the Netherlands' opposition to the bill.

"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."

ASML, based in the Netherlands, is the only maker in the world of the sophisticated lithography machines that are used to make cutting-edge AI chips.

China accounts for 19% of ASML's net system sales, and 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 as 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.

Key points:

• The MATCH Act would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment.

• ASML, Europe's most valuable company, is the only maker of cutting-edge AI chips.

• China accounts for 19% of ASML's net system sales.

• The MATCH Act would extend curbs to ASML's deep ultraviolet immersion machines, in addition to the long-standing ban on its most advanced EUV tools reaching China.

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Conclusion

The MATCH Act has sparked concerns for ASML and the Netherlands, with Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma warning of high stakes for the country. The bill, which would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, has yet to face a full House or Senate vote, and its fate remains uncertain.

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