US Bill Threatens ASML China Servicing

A proposed American law would stretch US export controls over ASML, the Dutch company that builds the only machines capable of making the world’s most advanced semiconductors. The dispute is simple enough: who decides what ASML may sell, service and upgrade, The Hague or the US Congress?

What ASML makes, and why China wants it

ASML builds lithography machines, which use focused light to print tiny circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. Its most advanced systems, EUV, or extreme ultraviolet, are in a category of their own. No other company makes them. Without EUV, the most powerful chips cannot be produced.

China has been ASML’s fastest-growing market. Over the past three years, ASML earned roughly €27 billion from Chinese customers, according to industry tracking, and China still accounts for an estimated 19-20% of expected revenue even after earlier US-led restrictions (ad-hoc-news, Reuters). That income is why the proposed legislation matters.

The MATCH Act, introduced in the US House and Senate in April 2026, would put broader American restrictions on semiconductor equipment sales to China into law (ChinaTalk, Broadband Breakfast). It has not passed. But Washington is already using it as pressure.

On 19 June, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised a more pointed concern directly with ASML: Washington believed one top EUV machine may have reached China. ASML denied it, saying its tracked global fleet of 314 operating EUV systems includes none in China (Reuters, Boursorama). No enforcement finding backs the allegation.

The service lever is the real weapon

Washington can reach a Dutch company through the Foreign Direct Product Rule. The rule allows the US to restrict a foreign-made item if it was produced using specified American technology or equipment. Because US-origin components and intellectual property sit inside the global chip supply chain, the rule travels well beyond American borders (Handelsblatt, Techzine).

The MATCH Act would go further by targeting the servicing of machines already installed in Chinese factories. This is where the economics become sharper. These machines need constant field engineering, spare parts, software updates and calibration to keep producing chips. If calibration slips, factories get fewer usable chips from each wafer and quality falls quickly. ASML’s installed-base service revenue reached about €8.2 billion in 2025, according to industry estimates (36Kr). A service ban would hit a recurring, high-margin revenue stream while gradually weakening Chinese chip production.

Who loses in Europe

The money ASML earns from China does not simply sit in the Netherlands. It helps fund the research network linking ASML, Belgium’s imec institute and major chipmakers (imec). Reduce that income and Europe cuts into R&D spending at the same time as the EU’s European Chips Act is trying to build semiconductor capacity inside the bloc (Akcie.cz).

Germany’s car industry adds another layer. Many automotive chips are made on older DUV, or deep ultraviolet, machines. These are less advanced than EUV, but could also fall within MATCH restrictions. If Chinese fabs lose access to DUV maintenance, supply could tighten for mature chips used in cars, factory robots and industrial electronics. That does not mean a repeat of the 2021-2023 shortages is automatic. It does mean the risk rises.

For Malta, this is not a remote Dutch-American dispute. A small, import-dependent EU economy feels these decisions through cars, electronics, data infrastructure and the wider cost of doing business. The mechanism is not dramatic, but it is familiar: a rule written elsewhere travels through supply chains before turning up in prices and availability at home.

ASML’s own CEO has warned that overly harsh embargoes may backfire by pushing China to accelerate its own lithography programme rather than freezing it out (BFM Business). France has put the sovereignty problem most plainly: Europe can have a strategic champion and still lack control if the rules governing that champion are written in Washington (FrenchWeb).

Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma travelled to Washington on 23 June to lobby against the MATCH Act, while the Netherlands also joined the US-led Pax Silica AI supply-chain initiative (Boursorama). That double move captures Europe’s bind. The Netherlands cannot walk away from the US security relationship. But it cannot simply hand Washington a veto over its most valuable company either. Owning ASML matters less if Europe cannot decide when ASML sells, services or upgrades its own machines.