Washington has its eyes on the Netherlands, a small but important European country that could hold the key to China’s future in manufacturing cutting-edge semiconductors.
The Netherlands has a population of just more than 17 million people — but is also home to ASML a star of the global semiconductor supply chain. It produces a high-tech chipmaking machine that China is keen to have access to.
The U.S. appears to have persuaded the Netherlands to prevent shipments to China for now, but relations look rocky as the Dutch weigh up their economic prospects if they’re cut off from the world’s second-largest economy.
ASML’s critical chip role
ASML, headquartered in the town of Veldhoven, does not make chips. Instead, it makes and sells $200 million extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to semiconductor manufacturers like Taiwan’s TSMC.
