On June 24, 2026, TechCrunch reported that Dutch trade minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma flew to Washington this week to meet Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress. His mission had a single objective: block a piece of U.S. legislation that could cripple ASML. It is the first time Europe has pushed back this directly against Washington’s China-focused chip export-control campaign.
The company at the center is ASML — Europe’s most valuable listed company at roughly $700 billion, and the only producer on Earth of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines needed to make cutting-edge AI chips. China accounts for about 19% of its system sales. After the meetings, Sjoerdsma told Bloomberg: “It’s exceptional that I’m coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress,” and “The stakes for the Netherlands may be very high.”
The Dutch Trade Minister’s Washington Trip
A national trade minister flying to Washington to lobby Congress against America’s own pending legislation is close to unheard of in diplomatic practice. The timing made it sharper: the executive branch and Congress were squeezing ASML simultaneously. Commerce Secretary Lutnick had told senior ASML executives in a series of meetings that he was concerned one of the company’s most advanced EUV machines “may have ended up in China.” Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill in Congress is preparing to extend the curbs to the DUV tools ASML may still legally sell to China. By speaking out at this exact moment, Sjoerdsma signaled that the Netherlands is done quietly complying. Bloomberg also reported that the bill would likely have to be folded into a larger legislative package to pass.
The MATCH Act: Closing the Last Open Door
The legislation that alarmed The Hague is the MATCH Act (H.R. 8170), introduced in April 2026 and already cleared by a key committee. It would extend export controls to ASML’s deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion lithography machines. Under the current regime, the most advanced EUV systems have been barred from sale to China since the first Trump administration; what China can buy today are older-generation DUV tools first shipped roughly a decade ago — and those permitted sales represent about a fifth of ASML’s expected 2026 revenue. In other words, if the bill passes, ASML’s equipment sales to China would fall close to zero. For a company that counts China among its largest single markets, that is an existential shock. The bill has not yet faced a full House or Senate vote, and the Trump administration has taken no formal position on it.
The EUV Question: Allegation and Denial
The spark for this pressure campaign was Lutnick telling ASML executives that he fears an EUV machine “may have ended up in China.” Senior administration officials told Bloomberg they have evidence that ASML shipped EUV-related components and transport equipment to China — but they have repeatedly declined to show that evidence, to Bloomberg or to ASML itself. ASML’s answer is unambiguous: “no such machine exists in China and has never existed there.” CEO Christophe Fouquet, in an interview about six weeks earlier, explained that every machine the company has ever shipped is tracked — either in monitored active use or dismantled and returned. Staff with EUV access are walled off from those without it, and China-based employees deliberately sit on the restricted side of that firewall. His argument is blunt: you cannot reverse-engineer a machine you have never possessed. Until Washington publishes its evidence, the question remains one side’s claim against the other’s denial.
Why Europe Is Pushing Back Now
ASML is Europe’s last crown jewel in advanced manufacturing, and the Netherlands’ leverage and anxiety are both concentrated in it. The EU has spent two years talking up technological sovereignty and sovereign AI, yet the steering wheel of export controls sits in Washington: what a Dutch company may sell, and to whom, is effectively decided by U.S. legislation. This ministerial lobbying trip is the first time Europe has put its objection formally on the table. One more intriguing thread is the conflict-of-interest question: the Commerce Department has committed up to $150 million in taxpayer money to xLight, a startup building technology seen as a long-term challenge to ASML’s EUV monopoly. TechCrunch stresses that nothing publicly connects the xLight stake to the EUV pressure — it could be entirely unrelated — but the timing alone is enough to make Brussels and The Hague nervous.
What to Watch Next
Three things are worth tracking. First, whether the MATCH Act can survive a standalone floor vote or gets folded into a larger defense-authorization package — the latter being the standard Washington playbook. Second, whether the U.S. government ever presents concrete evidence that an EUV system reached China; without it, the allegation stays at the level of rumor. Third, whether the EU lines up behind the Dutch position and pushes export controls from “Washington decides” toward some transatlantic consultation mechanism. For anyone tracking AI governance and export controls, this is currently the best live case study of the cracks inside the Western control coalition.
Sources
- Europe is pushing back on Washington’s chip war — TechCrunch
- The US says ASML’s top chip tool may be in China — TechCrunch
- US Tells ASML It’s Concerned China May Have Top Chip Tool — Bloomberg
AI-assisted summary compiled from the sources above, reviewed by a human before publishing.