EU Moves to Regulate Amazon, Microsoft Cloud Services
June 28, 2026
The Netherlands sent its trade minister to Washington to oppose the MATCH Act, a US bill that could strip ASML of its remaining Chinese market access worth billions.
A diplomatic confrontation is quietly unfolding between two close allies, and the global semiconductor industry is caught in the middle.
The Dutch government took the unusual step of sending Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma to Washington to lobby against the MATCH Act, a bill introduced in April that would extend existing chip export controls to include ASML’s deep ultraviolet immersion machines; the older-generation tools China is currently still permitted to purchase.
Sjoerdsma met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress, saying after the meetings: “It’s exceptional that I’m coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress. We’re doing that because those concerns are significant and because the stakes for the Netherlands may be very high.”
The stakes are not abstract. Over the past three years, ASML’s China business has generated approximately €27 billion in revenue, representing between 26 and 36 percent of the company’s total income.
ASML’s stock dropped approximately 2.6% following the MATCH Act’s introduction, and the diplomatic tension received another jolt on June 14, 2026, when US officials raised concerns that a top-tier ASML machine might have been delivered to China in potential violation of existing export controls; an accusation ASML flatly denied.
What makes the Dutch position particularly pointed is the extraterritorial reach of the proposed legislation. The MATCH Act would give the United States the power to determine for partner countries what their chip sector is allowed to ship to China, and could also ban companies from maintaining machines already sold to China.
The bill states that if Washington cannot reach an agreement with allies on the matter, the US would impose export restrictions on those allies.
Despite those disagreements, the Netherlands simultaneously signed onto the Pax Silica initiative during Sjoerdsma’s Washington visit. The initiative, launched by the US Department of State in December 2025, coordinates chip and AI supply chains to reduce reliance on China, with ASML’s inclusion considered a major strategic prize for the US-led alliance.
The dual posture, joining Pax Silica while fighting the MATCH Act; reflects the Netherlands’ precarious balancing act. By presenting itself as a reliable partner on technological security, the Dutch government hopes to convince Congress that ASML’s existing restrictions are already sufficient and that a full ban would do more harm than good.
The MATCH Act has cleared a committee but has not yet passed the full Congress, and would likely require folding into a broader legislative package to advance. For now, the outcome remains uncertain; but with ASML sitting at the tightest bottleneck in the global chip supply chain, the world’s AI ambitions may hinge on how this transatlantic dispute is resolved.
