From new-sale bans to retroactive servicing bans
The U.S. Congress is advancing legislation that would push the Netherlands toward a near-total ban on ASML's deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion lithography sales to China — and, more consequentially, toward barring ASML from servicing DUV systems Chinese fabs already own. The bill, the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act (H.R. 8170 / S. 4281), was introduced in early April 2026 and gives allied suppliers — named as the Netherlands and Japan — a 150-day window to adopt matching countrywide controls before Washington moves to impose its own restrictions unilaterally.
Dutch parliamentary records confirm the stakes. In a formal reply to questions from MP Hoogeveen (JA21), Minister for Foreign Trade Sjoerd Sjoerdsma acknowledged that the MATCH Act envisions "countrywide controls with a presumption of denial" for Chinese end-users, and that maintenance of equipment already installed in China "could require a license" under a regime where such licenses would presumptively not be granted — effectively a servicing ban dressed as a licensing requirement (Tweede Kamer, kamervragen 2026Z07615). A related written answer in the official parliamentary record makes the government's objection explicit: "ieder land is verantwoordelijk voor zijn eigen wetgeving" — each country is responsible for its own legislation (Kamervragen (Aanhangsel) 2025-2026, nr. 1903).
What's actually new
Dutch officials have objected to the MATCH Act's extraterritorial reach since at least June, when Sjoerdsma first criticized it publicly. What has changed by late August is the direction of travel: reporting indicates the bill has picked up bipartisan momentum toward inclusion in the U.S. defense authorization process, and the scope under discussion has hardened from curbing new DUV sales to also cutting off calibration, spare parts, software updates and field support for machines already inside Chinese fabs (TrendForce; igorsLAB). Dutch officials are lobbying Washington against the change, but with Congress treating allied alignment as a deadline rather than a negotiation, The Hague's leverage to shape the outcome — as opposed to simply absorbing it — looks limited.
The numbers explain why this is a fight worth having for both sides. China accounted for roughly 33% of ASML's total 2025 revenue, and Chinese customers imported around 95 DUV systems that year alone (TrendForce). That share has already been falling — to roughly 14% of ASML's net system sales by the second quarter of 2026 as export exposure narrowed and Chinese buyers front-loaded orders — but a servicing ban would hit differently than a sales ban: it degrades machines Chinese fabs have already paid for and depend on daily, not just future purchases (Motley Fool).
The case for going further, stated fairly
The strongest argument for closing the servicing gap is straightforward: export controls that stop at the point of sale are only half a control. A DUV tool serviced indefinitely, upgraded with new software, and kept in calibration is not meaningfully different from a machine China could still buy new — multi-patterning techniques already let sufficiently maintained DUV systems produce chips well below the process nodes Washington intended to restrict. If the objective is genuinely to slow Chinese advanced-chip production for military and AI applications, a rule that bans new shipments but lets Beijing keep every previously delivered unit running at full yield indefinitely is a policy with a large, permanent loophole built in from day one. Congress's frustration is not invented: allied controls genuinely have lagged U.S. restrictions, and China's semiconductor equipment ecosystem — including the state-backed Shanghai Aishengna, aiming for roughly five domestic DUV systems in 2026 and twenty in 2027 — is still years from replacing tens of thousands of installed foreign tools (TrendForce).
Why the coercive route is still the wrong one
But a policy can be aimed at a real gap and still be badly designed. The MATCH Act's 150-day ultimatum treats Dutch export sovereignty as a formality to be overridden rather than a partnership to be negotiated — even though the Netherlands has independently tightened its own DUV controls twice, in 2023 and again in 2025, without a U.S. deadline forcing its hand. Coercing an ally that has already demonstrated the behavior you want is a strange way to reward cooperation, and it teaches every other allied government watching — Japan included — that goodwill buys no discretion. That's a durable cost to the coalition-based model that has made export controls work at all; unilateral U.S. rules can restrict what American firms sell, but they cannot compel Dutch companies to break Dutch and EU Dual-Use Regulation law without Dutch consent, which is precisely why Washington is trying legislation rather than persuasion.
The retroactive servicing ban also risks the opposite of its intended effect. Cutting off maintenance on an already-installed base doesn't return that capacity to zero — it hands China's chipmakers a concrete, urgent reason to accelerate domestic lithography and servicing capability that a purely forward-looking sales ban would not. Forced self-sufficiency, once achieved, is not undone by future U.S. goodwill. A narrower, negotiated version of the MATCH Act — one that drops the mandatory 150-day trigger and the threat of Foreign Direct Product Rule sanctions against a treaty ally, in favor of continued bilateral alignment of the kind the Netherlands has already shown it will do voluntarily — would close more of the real gap with less collateral damage to the alliance the policy depends on.