This year, Christophe Fouquet took the helm of the world’s largest supplier of lithography scanners, the Dutch company ASML, and he expresses his views on the current situation with restrictions on the export of advanced chip production equipment to China quite openly. In his opinion, American export restrictions are increasingly motivated by economic motives rather than protecting national security.
Concerns about national security are gradually fading into the background, as the CEO of ASML made clear during his speech at the Citi technology conference in New York. According to him, quoted by Reuters, the measures taken by the United States will meet with more and more resistance: “I believe that it is becoming increasingly difficult to connect these actions with issues of national security.” Most likely, pressure (on US partners) to introduce new restrictions against China will increase, according to Fouquet, but it will run into growing resistance. The head of ASML hopes that some balance of interests will be achieved as “business seeks greater clarity and greater stability.”
For the Netherlands, ASML’s business is of particular importance, as the company is one of the largest in the technology sector throughout Europe. Prime Minister Dick Schoof last week stressed the importance of protecting ASML’s economic interests. The company now receives almost half of its revenue in China, and new US bans on the supply of its equipment to this region could seriously hit the business.