Christophe Fouquet was trying to be diplomatic. The ASML CEO sat down with TechCrunch in May and calmly explained that his company's sales to China were limited to older deep ultraviolet lithography machines — gear first shipped about a decade ago. Nothing cutting-edge. Nothing that would let Beijing build a next-gen chip industry overnight.
But Washington heard something else. It heard a loophole.
Now a new bill, the MATCH Act, wants to close that loophole — banning exports of those same older DUV tools even to trusted allies like the Netherlands. And Europe is finally pushing back.
This isn't about technology. It's about control.
Let's be clear about what's happening here. The U.S. has spent the last three years building a wall around China's semiconductor ambitions. Export controls on advanced chips, on chipmaking gear, on the talent that designs them. And it's worked — kinda. China's homegrown chip industry is years behind schedule. But Washington's strategy has a blind spot: it assumes allies will just fall in line.
They didn't.
ASML, the Dutch company that essentially has a monopoly on the lithography machines needed to make advanced chips, has kept selling older DUV tools to Chinese customers. Not the bleeding-edge extreme ultraviolet machines — those were already blocked. But the workhorses of the previous generation. The kind of gear that makes 28-nanometer chips, which power everything from cars to consumer electronics.
And Washington sees that as a leak in the dam.
"You can't win a chip war by demanding your allies surrender their own industries." — Former European trade official speaking anonymously
The MATCH Act: Extraterritorial reach on steroids
Introduced by a bipartisan group in Congress, the MATCH Act — Minimizing Alien Transshipments of Chipmaking Hardware — would extend U.S. export controls to cover those older DUV machines. Even if they're made entirely outside the U.S. Even if the Dutch government has already approved the sale. If a single American part or piece of software went into that machine, Washington says it gets a veto.
That's the logic that's driving European officials up the wall.
"The U.S. is treating its allies like vassals," one European Commission staffer told me, on condition of anonymity. "We're supposed to sacrifice our own economic interests for a strategy we weren't consulted on."
The numbers back that frustration. ASML gets about 15% of its revenue from China — roughly €3 billion a year. Most of that comes from DUV tools. If the MATCH Act becomes law, that revenue disappears overnight. And it's not just ASML. The entire European chip supply chain — from optical components to chemical suppliers — takes a hit.
What China actually buys (and what it doesn't)
Let's kill a myth: China isn't buying ASML's DUV machines to build advanced AI chips. Those need EUV. What China's foundries do with DUV is churn out mature-node chips — the 28nm and larger stuff that isn't winning any technology races but is absolutely essential for the global economy.
You want a new car? Those chips control everything from engine management to infotainment. You want affordable electronics? Those chips are in your microwave, your washing machine, your kid's toys. Blocking these exports doesn't just hurt ASML — it tightens supply chains that are already brittle from years of pandemic and geopolitics.
And here's the kicker: China has been stockpiling DUV machines for exactly this scenario. SMIC, the country's largest foundry, already has enough older gear to keep pumping out 28nm chips for years. The MATCH Act wouldn't cripple China's chip production. It would just make European companies lose market share to — wait for it — Chinese competitors who are now racing to build their own DUV equivalents.
Europe's slow-burn rebellion
Don't expect a dramatic break. Europe doesn't do dramatic. What it does do is regulatory friction and quiet retaliation.
The Dutch government has already signaled it won't implement new U.S. export controls without a clear security rationale. "We will not automatically adopt American rules," Dutch trade minister Liesje Schreinemacher said in a recent parliamentary hearing. That's diplomatic code for: show us the evidence or get lost.
Beyond the Netherlands, the European Union is exploring a "chips reciprocity" framework — the bureaucratic equivalent of a tariff threat. If the U.S. blocks European chip gear sales to China, Brussels could restrict American chip imports to Europe. Given that the U.S. relies on European chipmaking equipment for its own fabs, that's a leverage point Washington can't ignore.
"This is the first real test of whether the transatlantic alliance can survive a trade war dressed up as national security." — Chip industry analyst
The deeper problem: No one asked Europe
Walk into any foreign ministry in Europe and you'll hear the same complaint: Washington makes the rules, then expects everyone else to enforce them. The CHIPS Act was written in Washington. The export controls were designed in Washington. The MATCH Act is being debated in Washington. European governments were briefed after the fact.
That's not how alliances are supposed to work.
The fear isn't just economic. It's strategic. If Europe's chip industry is gutted to serve American geopolitical goals, what happens when the next crisis comes? Will Europe be expected to sacrifice its energy sector? Its pharmaceutical industry? Its defense contractors?
The answer, European officials fear, is yes — unless they draw a line now.
What happens next
The MATCH Act faces an uncertain path in Congress. Even if it passes, it would likely face legal challenges from European companies arguing that U.S. law doesn't apply to Dutch-made machines. And the Biden administration — or whoever succeeds it — would have to weigh the diplomatic cost of alienating allies for marginal gains in the chip war.
But the damage is already done. Trust has been eroded. European companies are now hedging: diversifying supply chains, exploring joint ventures with Asian partners, and quietly lobbying their governments to push back harder.
And ASML? It keeps selling DUV machines to China, for now. Fouquet knows the clock is ticking. The next generation of Chinese-made lithography gear isn't here yet — but it's coming. And when it arrives, the U.S.-led export control regime won't just look aggressive. It'll look irrelevant.
