The Netherlands, like ASML, is trying to find a middle ground between the US and China on chip sanctions, with recent plans stopping short of Biden's 2022 rules
Context & Ripple Effects
The Dutch position is the product of a year of transatlantic friction: Washington began lobbying the Netherlands in mid-2022 to ban ASML's older deep-ultraviolet systems from China, and by December the two countries had joined Japan in agreeing in principle to tighten chipmaking export controls together. The March 9 letter outlining restrictions on immersion DUV lithography exports is the Dutch implementation of that deal — and it deliberately stops short of the scope of Biden's October 2022 rules.
First-order effects
- ASML keeps a China business narrower than Washington wanted but wider than Biden's 2022 rules would allow, with immersion DUV sales restricted under Dutch-defined scope rather than the full US regime.
- Chinese chipmakers face new hurdles buying advanced lithography tools, but the gaps in the Dutch scope leave them more room than the US framework alone would have permitted.
Second-order effects
- Washington's pressure does not end here — the pattern that follows shows the Netherlands repeatedly resisting expansion, including later lobbying against controls that would constrain ASML's immersion DUV sales and, per the related reporting, letting ASML keep exporting after lobbying to offset weak demand elsewhere.
- Beijing responds on the supply side: sources report a requirement that chipmakers use at least 50% domestically made equipment for new capacity, plus retrofitting of older DUV models to push toward advanced smartphone and AI chips — both of which erode the controls' practical effect.
Third-order effects
- Licensing authority fragments along national lines — the later Dutch regime requiring ASML and ASM International to seek Dutch rather than US licenses formalizes exactly the middle ground this article describes — and retrofitting activity exposes cracks in the US-led control system that enforcement alone cannot close.
- If each round of controls stops short of the strictest US position, the durable outcome is a negotiated trilateral regime whose scope is set as much by Dutch and Japanese commercial interests as by Washington's security goals.
The trend: Chip export controls are consolidating into a US-Netherlands-Japan regime whose scope is renegotiated each round, with the Netherlands consistently landing short of the US maximum to protect ASML's China revenue.