ASML, based in a small Dutch city called Veldhoven, makes the machines that print the tiny patterns onto silicon chips. Without these machines, there are no advanced chips. Without advanced chips, there is no AI. That is not an exaggeration: every chipmaker on the planet that produces modern processors depends on ASML equipment. The company has no real competitor for its most sophisticated products.
China has known this for years. Chinese chip factories spent the last several years buying ASML machines as fast as they could, before restrictions tightened further. China was ASML's largest single market in 2025, accounting for around 33% of total revenue. In just the two years of 2024 and 2025 combined, ASML earned close to 20 billion euros from China.
The MATCH Act, introduced in the US Congress in April 2026, would end what remains of that trade. The most advanced ASML machines, which use a technology called extreme ultraviolet light, have been banned from China for years. What the MATCH Act targets is the older generation of machines, first shipped roughly a decade ago, that China can still buy today. The bill would ban both new sales and, crucially, ongoing maintenance of machines already installed in Chinese factories.
The maintenance ban is the part that makes this more than a trade argument. These machines are not appliances you set up once and leave alone. Without regular servicing, calibration, and parts, they degrade over time. Banning maintenance on already-installed equipment would slowly disable China's chip production capacity without shipping a single new machine. Bank of America analysts estimated a full ban on these tools and their servicing could reduce ASML's revenue by roughly 14 to 15% and cut its operating profit by 16 to 17% on a direct basis.
The Netherlands pushed back immediately. Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma flew to Washington this week, met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and told Congress the bill was unacceptable. His core objection was about sovereignty: the MATCH Act does not just restrict American companies, it gives the US government the power to dictate what a Dutch company, operating under Dutch law, can do with its own products. If allies do not comply within 150 days, Washington could use a rule called the Foreign Direct Product Rule to extend US jurisdiction over any product that contains American-made parts. ASML's machines contain American components throughout.
The Dutch government's position is nuanced. The Netherlands has already agreed with Washington to block ASML's most advanced machines from reaching China. Sjoerdsma is not arguing against all restrictions. He is arguing against being forced into restrictions that his government did not choose, on a timeline set by another country's legislature.
In the same week he went to oppose the MATCH Act, the Netherlands also formally joined Pax Silica, a US-led initiative to coordinate AI and chip supply chains among allied nations. That is a deliberate signal: the Dutch want to be partners, not subjects.
The bill has not passed. It has not faced a full House or Senate vote, and it would likely need to be folded into a larger legislative package to move forward. But the direction is not in doubt. US export controls on chip equipment have tightened consistently since 2018 under both parties. This bill originated in Congress rather than the White House, which suggests the political consensus for restrictions is broader than before.
China is not sitting still. Chinese firms are developing domestic alternatives to ASML machines, but they are years behind. The best Chinese lithography tool currently in development operates at roughly 90 nanometers, a measure of circuit detail, while ASML's most advanced machines produce circuits at 2 nanometers. That is roughly 10 to 15 technology generations behind. A domestic Chinese alternative capable of high-volume chip production at competitive quality is not expected before 2030 at the earliest.
For any business that depends on chips, which at this point means nearly every business, the takeaway is straightforward. The supply of advanced chips will remain controlled by a very small number of companies for years to come, and the politics surrounding those companies is getting more complicated, not less. Lead times, pricing, and availability for chip-dependent products and services will reflect that reality.