Trump administration said to press Dutch hard to cancel China chip equipment sale

The Trump administration mounted an extensive campaign to block the sale of Dutch chip manufacturing technology to China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lobbying the Netherlands government and White House officials sharing a classified intelligence report with the country’s Prime Minister, people familiar with the effort told Reuters.

The high-level push, which has not previously been reported, shows the importance the White House places on preventing China from getting hold of a machine required to make the world’s fastest microprocessors. It also shows the challenges facing the US government’s largely unilateral efforts to stem the flow of advanced technology to China.

The US campaign began in 2018, after the Dutch government gave semiconductor equipment company ASML, the global leader in a critical chip-making process known as lithography, a licence to sell its most advanced machine to a Chinese customer, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Over the following months, US officials examined whether they could block the sale outright and held at least four rounds of talks with Dutch officials, three sources told Reuters.

The effort culminated in the White House on July 18 when Deputy National Security Advisor Charles Kupperman raised the issue with Dutch officials during the visit of Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who was given an intelligence report on the potential repercussions of China acquiring ASML’s technology, according to a former US government official familiar with the matter.