Europe Brakes on Washington's Chip War — Allies Stop Lining Up Behind the Controls

The Netherlands has publicly resisted Washington’s push to widen export controls on chipmaking gear bound for China. Against the MATCH Act, which takes direct aim at Dutch firm ASML, the trade minister flew to Washington to object to controls “imposed across the border.” ASML earns roughly a fifth of its system sales in China. The era of allies falling in line behind every US restriction is ending — and with Samsung and SK Hynix caught in the same crossfire, this is not a foreign problem for Korea.

What happened

Until now the chip war had a simple shape. Washington draws a line, allies follow. The Netherlands broke that shape. As TechCrunch reports, Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma flew to Washington to meet Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress and register his opposition to the MATCH Act. Introduced in April, the bill would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, and it hits Dutch firm ASML squarely. ASML is Europe’s most valuable listed company and the only maker of the advanced lithography machines used to build cutting-edge chips. China accounts for about 19% of its net system sales, and the company expects roughly 20% of its 2026 revenue — billions of euros — to come from already-permitted sales of older deep ultraviolet (DUV) tools to China.

Sjoerdsma’s argument is plain. Export control, he said, “works best when countries cooperate out of conviction, rather than when policy is imposed across the border.” The Netherlands would choose case-by-case review and “highly targeted, proportionate measures” over a blanket ban. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet has made the same point. Broad controls erode Western toolmakers’ market position and disrupt global supply chains while mostly accelerating China’s drive toward self-reliance. The gear the controls block is the latest generation; what China can buy today is already older. So tightening the screws further mainly forfeits revenue and buys China time to build its own stack. At the same time, the US and the Netherlands both signed onto the “Pax Silica” initiative, a group of countries aiming to cut dependence on China for critical raw materials and manufacturing know-how. An awkward coexistence: cooperating on one front, clashing over the reach of controls on another.

What it means for Korean startups and industry

The core takeaway is that even allies no longer line up behind US controls without question. Once export policy becomes a product of negotiation between allies rather than a unilateral US call, the scope and pace of restrictions get harder to predict. Korea sits at the center of this. Samsung and SK Hynix run large fabs in China and are perpetually forced to choose between US equipment and technology controls on one side and the Chinese market on the other. ASML’s dilemma — deep reliance on China revenue while exposed to US extraterritorial pressure — is a near-mirror of Korea’s memory industry. What the Netherlands demonstrated is that when domestic industrial interests are on the line, allies will resist controls with no exceptions.

For founders, this translates into a question of supply-chain sovereignty. First, country-of-origin risk in equipment and materials. If you build semiconductor hardware or a manufacturing startup that depends on it, do not stake everything on a single supplier locked inside one control regime. Control lines are drawn politically and moved politically. Second, the new standard of targeting and proportionality. If Dutch-style case-by-case review becomes the norm, what gets blocked and what gets cleared will vary item by item — read in advance which bucket your business falls into. Third, the cost of picking sides. The more you tie your business to either the US or China, the more the other side’s market and supply lines close. A Korean startup’s edge may come precisely from a design that is not over-dependent on either.

What to watch now

Watch whether the MATCH Act actually passes, and if it does, how much of the Dutch-style “proportionate exception” survives. That becomes the template for future allied controls. Next, watch ASML’s China revenue guidance: how the volume the company has forecast gets trimmed by policy is the most honest gauge of whether the controls bite. Finally, watch Korea’s position. The harder the US tries to bind its allies, the more Korea will walk the same tightrope between case-by-case negotiation and protecting its own industry. In an era when controls swing with politics, a supply chain that is not bound to either side is itself a competitive asset.