How ASML navigates trade turmoil

ASML, the Dutch company that makes multimillion-dollar tools to manufacture advanced semiconductors, is grappling with the repercussions of a tech trade war, writes Adam Satariano from Veldhoven, the Netherlands

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Seemingly every week, Christophe Fouquet, the chief executive of the Dutch technology company ASML, has found himself grappling with political firestorms.

Last month, US President Donald Trump announced 50% tariffs on European goods sold to the United States, potentially raising some costs for ASML's lithography machines, which are critical for producing advanced microchips. Two days later, he paused the tariffs.

Around the same time, the foreign minister of the Netherlands was in Beijing, partly to discuss lifting the rules that bar Chinese companies from buying ASML's equipment. Then last week, the Dutch government collapsed, throwing any trade talks into question.

All of these events had the potential to disrupt ASML, which is the only maker of complex lithography machines that can cost as much as $400 million and be as big as a train car. The tools are so coveted by nations such as China and the United States for making cutting-edge chips that ASML has been turned into a geopolitical chess piece in trade battles, with some of its products restricted for export to certain countries.

The tussling has made it an uncertain time for Mr Fouquet, 52, a Frenchman who took over as chief executive of the $300 billion company last year. “A large part of it is still out of our hands,” he said in a recent interview from ASML's headquarters in the small town of Veldhoven, about 80 miles south of Amsterdam.

Mr Fouquet, who was trained as an engineer, initially kept a low profile about the geopolitical challenges facing his company. Now, he has become more open about his concerns that government policies risk upending decades-old supply chains, slowing development of artificial intelligence and other technologies and motivating China to expand its homegrown semiconductor industry, which could ultimately undercut ASML's dominance and harm Western interests.