[renewiltord]

ASML develops and ships their machines at the pleasure of Uncle Sam because the USA licensed them the tech and remains a crucial part of the supply chain intentionally. It's not a lever. It's a partnership that is mutually beneficial and neither side can really ruin the other without damaging themselves.

[saubeidl]

If Uncle Sam pisses off Europa Regina enough, she won't give a damn about licenses.

[renewiltord]

ASML will instantly stall at that point. The EUV light sources are built in the US under US export control regulation. No EUV light source means no ASML EUV machine. I get that some European chest-beating sounds good because there's not very much tech in Europe, but this is an intentional transnational supply chain. It's no accident that the US chose ASML to develop this tech rather than Canon or Nikon. Close ally deep within the US military shield from nearby air bases.

The biggest losers from any such actual attempt by Europe will be Western Europe and the US.

I really like that Europeans are starting to be more patriotic. It's good to see. It's also fortunate that European leaders are aware of Europe's position and role in geopolitics.

[saubeidl]

Well, it sounds like an alternative supplier for EUV light sources just became available...

[renewiltord]

An alternative manufacturer, but not a supplier, no.

The US exerts sufficient control over ASML that this will not happen without NATO ending. And the end of NATO (which would be a geopolitical shift more profound than the Fall of the Berlin Wall) and a replacement with some Chinese EUV light source risks the scuttling of all ASML facilities and devices. This is vapor above a coffee cup.

[saubeidl]

The scenario I'm imagining is in fact the US further destabilizing NATO, in which case Europe wouldn't feel bound by any of the agreements we've made with Americans. Failing that, I don't think any of what was said above is relevant.

[lossolo]

ASML owns the company that builds the light source. They acquired it, it's a US company, which is why US export controls apply, that's all. If needed, they could replicate the subsidiary in the EU.

[renewiltord]

This is too far from correct for any correction to be anything but a full restatement of the facts. Moving the tech over requires US approval. Listen, the Dutch are not going to risk it. Even if they were, ASML would not risk it because all of their customers wouldn't buy anything from a company that's on the EAR Entity List (which is where they'd end up if they tried this without the US allowing it) without US approval. I don't get why people are saying this stuff. It's like saying "Oh yeah, so you divide by zero and then multiply both sides and ta-da". Like, the whole statement is nonsensical.

To enable the whole thing to work you'd need the US to have shrunk to the equivalent of Canada in influence. I'm not saying that's impossible, but in that scenario, the Dutch might well be trying to keep Russians out of Amsterdam and the Turks out of Germany rather than trying to pull an IP heist on the Americans.

You can buy an e-book on Kindle and Amazon still controls what you do with it, right? ASML's ownership of Cymer is like that, except it's the US instead of Amazon.

[lossolo]

> Moving the tech over requires US approval

Of course it does, that's why I wrote about export controls but the context is not current state of the world, but what OP wrote:

> If Uncle Sam pisses off Europa Regina enough, she won't give a damn about licenses.

And in this very different state of the world, export controls are worth the same as paper they were written on.

[pests]

Specifically control is related to the Foreign Direct Product Rule, where in which the US claims jurisdiction over any foreign product containing 25% or more of US-origins (Cymer, etc)

[bgnn]

In ASML's case it is the Dutch government banning them, because US government openly threatened them. It's the logical thing to do for an ally.

[cryptonector]

I think Europe is bluffing that they can go their own way. They can't. They won't try. Europe has been whining that they're going to catch up since the 80s, but they've yet to do it.