US sanctions force The Netherlands off Microsoft and toward alternative NixOS

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mmywacaday about 3 hours ago 168 commentsRead Article on tomshardware.com

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guidoiaquinti•about 2 hours ago

Several International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have been unable to access their bank accounts or receive routine salary payments and financial transfers due to financial blockages triggered by United States sanctions. In the country where they live

kccqzy•28 minutes ago

The United States has never recognized the jurisprudence of ICC anyways. So to the United States these judges are just regular foreigners making decisions they don’t like. Sanctions are an appropriate tool for the United States to meddle in foreign affairs anyways.

Personally I don’t really have much faith in the ICC; its premise is flawed since great powers will never be deferential to a foreign court system anyways.

muvlon•6 minutes ago

And reducing exposure to US sanctions (for example by investing into alternatives to Windows or Visa/MasterCard) is an appropriate response for the affected countries.

ericmay•13 minutes ago

> The United States has never recognized the jurisprudence of ICC anyways.

True, neither has China, India, or Russia.

mhh__•about 1 hour ago

Frankly I think this is a good bit of hormesis for European countries. It's critical that we have domestic payment infrastructure.

mike_hearn•10 minutes ago

Europe does have domestic payment infrastructure, that's in some ways more advanced than the US. That doesn't matter because US sanctions don't depend on control of the infrastructure itself. They have a recursive structure: if you don't enforce US sanctions, or you trade with a peer that doesn't, then you yourself become sanctioned. FATCA works the same way, as did the deployment of the global anti-money laundering system (a US invention, largely).

stirfish•5 minutes ago

My new vocabulary word for today: Hormesis is a two-phased dose-response relationship whereby low-dose exposures have a beneficial effect and high-dose amounts are either inhibitory to function or toxic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

busssard•34 minutes ago

what would be an alternative currently? i know of services like twint but this is a local swiss solution. any more EU wide established solutions??

foepys•14 minutes ago

Wero [1] is build on the Dutch iDEAL system and is currently on an upwards trajectory with both banks and retail [2].

1: https://wero-wallet.eu/

2: https://www.werotracker.eu/

NicoJuicy•about 1 hour ago

Let's get rid of US dependency for governement infrastructure as quickly as possible please.

toomuchtodo•about 1 hour ago

In progress.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49632470

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225112

RunSet•about 1 hour ago

Killing the survivors of a shipwreck[0] is a textbook example of a war crime[1] and would explain why the liar-in-chief is so sweaty about the ICC.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/28/...

[1] https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/cnns-elie-honig-points-out...

ericmay•6 minutes ago

Trump isn't sweaty about the ICC. There is next to 0% likelihood that an American president would be sent to the ICC to be tried or something. Anyone who thinks that might happen or thinks the ICC might have the power to compel such a scenario is quite delusional or just misunderstands how the world actually works.

jermaustin1•37 minutes ago

> would explain why the liar-in-chief is so sweaty about the ICC.

In what world do you think Trump even remembers about the double tap on a fishing vessel more than a day ago? He has no worry about anything, he has escaped prosecution for everything he's ever done, and I doubt he believes he might face a tribunal at the Hague, if he even actually knows what the Hague, or a tribunal, or the ICC actually are.

RunSet•30 minutes ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-calls-all-icc-memb...

rapsey•about 2 hours ago

ICC judges getting the right wing activist treatment, except the activists get it from their own government.

bunderbunder•about 2 hours ago

I’m trying to remember the last time an international criminal court judge came to my community and brandished a firearm while shouting slurs at me. It has to have been at least a few weeks now.

flohofwoe•about 2 hours ago

Concrete examples to verify such claims please? Also in civilized countries such things are decided by the justice system, not the government (which to the surprise of many simple minded people - like a certain US president and his fanbase - is independent from the government).

ecshafer•about 1 hour ago

The concrete example would be Canada "debanking" the truckers who protested in Ottawa for exercising their GOD given right to free speech. Another concrete example would be Germany having banks close accounts for the AFD and AFD related people.

pc86•about 2 hours ago

In what universe is the judiciary not part of the government?

mhh__•about 1 hour ago

This is only really true in certain countries that don't really do democracy. In Britain for example parliament is sovereign.

iAMkenough•about 2 hours ago

You mean right-wing terrorists? The ones that forcibly invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and attacked police officers in an effort to distrupt democracy?

neuronexmachina•about 1 hour ago

The current admin views right-wing terrorists as brave heroes in service of Dear Leader.

embedding-shape•about 2 hours ago

Are you saying the US government been implementing sanctions to make right wing activists not be able to receive bank transfers? That sounds like friendly fire and backwards, are you sure you understood the "source" correctly?

sebzim4500•about 1 hour ago

Not from the US, but for example anti-lockdown campaigners in Canada had their bank accounts frozen IIRC

edgyquant•about 1 hour ago

Previous administrations have yes.

tradertef•26 minutes ago

The amount of damage US is doing to itself to protect a genocidal regime is unbelievable.

andsoitis•about 2 hours ago

The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace and human advancement.

The zero-sum mindset that's de rigueur at the moment needs to die soon or the world that we'll inhabit is gonna suck.

adrianmsmith•23 minutes ago

> The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace

I previously thought the same, with Europe and Russia doing lots of trade e.g. Germany buying lots of gas from Russia, and many western companies being present in Russia. It seems obviously true.

But Russia still started a war anyway, so I guess it's not actually true.

utopiah•3 minutes ago

I think it's true but only in equitable societies.

Putin or Trump are totally isolated from economical and political consequences so they have no problem severing ties. If there are genuine co-dependencies, including for the leaders, they it's much harder to break peace.

I imagine the ideological aspect is the deeper motivation but it only matters with the right circumstances.

bunderbunder•about 2 hours ago

But it would seem there’s a certain balancing act. Because that kind of economic integration can also create pressure points for an autocrat to exploit in ways that are contrary to peace and human advancement.

This is why many Enlightenment thinkers didn’t just view monopolies as an economic problem; they viewed it as a direct threat to free and just society.

oytis•21 minutes ago

Yes, but we (in Europe) cannot afford all the digital infrastructure to be concentrated in one partner country. If you buy something from us and we buy something from you, that's trade. If we have to buy everything from you, that's a dependency, and we need to fix it asap

wyldfire•about 1 hour ago

We've gathered decades of evidence in support of this, with commerce and trade supporting global peace.

Though, it's nice to see in this particular case that a near monopoly player gets unseated and creates room for innovation.

m4rtink•about 1 hour ago

For this to work all participants need to play along, not throw a tantrum & actively trying to sabotage the system. In such cases, you need to cut out the faulty participant & continue without them.

bluGill•about 1 hour ago

But now you are not playing along either...

agentultra•40 minutes ago

Yes, exactly. Playing along with anti-cooperative and anti-progressive behaviour is not on the agenda. The goal isn’t to get along with everyone.

flohofwoe•about 1 hour ago

The idea of "change through trade" mostly worked great (see most former socialist European countries), but sometimes not at all (see Russia and more recently the US), and China is kind of in the middle of both extremes and may swing to either side in the future.

HelloUsername•about 2 hours ago

Related: "Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS (dawo.community)" 25.sep.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841563 581 comments

silverFork•about 3 hours ago

It is more like self imposed sanction against US made products. There are now tons of open source operating systems and applications that can replace Microsoft products, which are basically some old programs. The replacements cost vastly less for use and support.

juujian•about 1 hour ago

Of course you would want to procure products that work for all of your employees. The idea that you could just cut off certain elements of a foreign government was really shortsighted.

pipes•about 2 hours ago

Citation needed on the costs vastly less to support and use.

anonzzzies•about 1 hour ago

I do not know in this case, but I led migration and cost benefits analysis beforehand of very large Windows 3.11 to 95 to 2000; at the time there was nothing else that was considered useful and there still pain and massive cost. Later on we had to consider Linux as alternative; it just wasn’t close ; the stability (yep), easy of use etc was just not feasible. Now that Linux is good and easy to configure to basically be exactly like Windows and now that most custom applications of large corporates are web based and specific ones can be ran via Citrix for a few people who need it, I am guessing it finally is cheaper now. And 90% of users won’t even notice the difference; I remember when I was planning my first 3.11 to 95 migration that people were by far most stressed about users unable to open applications as they remember not the name or the icon but 2nd row, 3rd down is Word. Start, 5 up, 1 right, 3 down is internet. Etc. So as long as that’s the same, you are fine. It’s how most our clients still work so we take care never to move functionalities; only add, no delete.

skeledrew•40 minutes ago

> 2nd row, 3rd down is Word. Start, 5 up, 1 right, 3 down is internet.

That's crazy. There's no way that's the case today though as learning about basic computers+office (which implicitly includes how to run apps) is pretty standard in schools, and is a requirement for relevant positions. And the alternatives have a mostly similar UI, so the only differences people really need to deal with is ribbon vs traditional toolbar and a few other minor items, which can be covered in a couple of meetings for the more dense employees.

silverFork•about 2 hours ago

No monthly fees and most software is available on opensource

windows -> linux mint OR reactOS OR OpenSUSE OR NIXos ( their choice) and many more

excel -> many of them as well as google spread sheet for free

Word -> Gazillion editors on open source; some much much better; and there is free google editor to boot

PowerPoint-> again Gazillion opensource replacements

Paint-> is a joke. Open source stuff is 10 times better

I don't want to advertise these products but you have access to search engines; look it up..

What is it that you think is so special? The only reason people are using the stuff is momentum carried from the past and PC being sold preloaded with windows.

In my opinion that is.

zidad•about 1 hour ago

Google is not a very viable alternative when you're trying to evade US sanctions

webarchitect•about 1 hour ago

Not to mention that with WINE you can install Microsoft Office - I could be wrong, but I think OS and Infra are the focus, Microsoft Office is orienting and tolerable. Its bloated but people know it. Besides office, everything important really is a web app now.

skeledrew•about 1 hour ago

> reactOS

Not at all viable for daily use. Better you said ZorinOS (Linux distro with a very Windows feel; used it myself for a few months during my transition from Windows over 10 years ago).

tosti•about 1 hour ago

"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power

bluGill•about 2 hours ago

Very much. There are a lot of hidden costs in computers. What does IT cost you? If everybody already knows the other program how much productivity is lost before they figure out the slight changes with the new (they will learn but experts will need time to become experts).

edwinjm•about 2 hours ago

That’s not a citation. Of course you want to have actual research to substantiate these statements.

jackb4040•about 1 hour ago

> If everybody already knows the other program

Thankfully what you're describing is a switching cost, not a permanently higher operating cost. Once the monopoly is broken and the state is using open source tools, there's every reason to believe it will be cheaper - no expensive proprietary certifications etc.

It would be unbelievable that the US would rather continue facilitating a genocide than retain Microsoft's global enterprise software monopoly, had they not already destroyed the UN, the ICC, and the global economy for that goal.

All they had to do was make keep the other costs lower than the switching costs, and they could've continued setting terms forever.

MadrasThorn•about 2 hours ago

Yeah. Trump has been ripping out US infrastructure globally. Trumps administration and vance(GOP finance chair) elon(doge) thiel(owns vance) need to be removed ASAP.

oytis•16 minutes ago

European bureaucracy has a thing for weird technology - Scala, Flatpak, now NixOS. But still better than being dependent on proprietary software not made in Europe

uceumice•10 minutes ago

Why is it weird?

paulvnickerson•about 2 hours ago

They didn't have to go with NixOS...

whizzter•6 minutes ago

The NixOS foundation is Dutch, probably felt like a safe starting point (esp considering that the French has already gone that way).

Besides, technically, if you're chosing an OS in 2026, it sounds like a good plan to start with a system that has many reproducibility, correctness properties and separated packages designed in from the start.

Now, I'm not a NixOS user (altering mostly between win,fbsd,osX and some debians), maybe there's some horrible dragons lurking in using it in practice (do share in that case), but from reading about it sounds like a plan for a system used in a future where people don't need to curse too much about legacy decisions?

whazor•about 2 hours ago

They previously used openSUSE and then Fedora. But both have companies behind them, where-as NixOS does not. And with NixOS they are more sovereign.

orbital-decay•about 1 hour ago

NixOS (or rather nixpkgs) in its current state heavily depends on GitHub/Microsoft at the very least, and switching to anything else is non-trivial.

whizzter•5 minutes ago

Perhaps why they're forking it?

andsoitis•about 2 hours ago

> They previously used openSUSE and then Fedora.

Why did those not work out? Why do they think things will be different with NixOS?

Ilaurens•about 1 hour ago

Fedora is connected to Red Hat which is a US company, which is exactly the dependence that is undesired

geek_at•about 1 hour ago

Because it was suse and fedora

vishalontheline•about 2 hours ago

thrance•about 2 hours ago

I think it makes sense? You probably get an easier time reproducing a config on thousands of devices using NixOS?

viraptor•about 2 hours ago

Golden image deployments and netboot have been around for ages. If you want an unified system and control the infrastructure, it doesn't really matter which system you use.

I'm not sure why they chose nix. But it does make it easier to carry local patches than a lot of other systems. I hope they succeed.

tosti•about 1 hour ago

The one that makes it trivial to carry over local patches is Gentoo. I carry a set of patches to every new computer and update them whenever neccesary. No overlay yet :P

lurkerforawhile•about 1 hour ago

it makes so much sense. a small team of experts maintaining a rock-solid base configuration providing the essentials, which can then be built on top of for agency/department or even personal specifics - all declarative, immutable, cachable, testable. I can't think of a better tool for the job.

viraptor•about 1 hour ago

As a downside, any change to software, version updates, keeping things secure now depends on the team is experts. Most are easy, some are hard (e.g. new software now requires a new Swift version - one person motivated enough to do that project has been pushing it for months), some are annoying (patch to libc means you're re-downloading your whole system).

As a positive thing, maybe at least nixos will get a serious security pipeline rather than the current best-effort community approach.

tosti•about 1 hour ago

buildroot

AmazingTurtle•about 2 hours ago

Had to be a team of circle jerk external advisories that want to become rich by inflating the effort here

tfrancisl•about 1 hour ago

I dont think Determinate Systems was involved, despite their proximity to the Netherlands (Eelco being Dutch). They work with American arms manufacturers, so I suspect that may play a role.

pessimizer•about 1 hour ago

This is my fear.

SillyUsername•about 1 hour ago

Some people might consider not having access to Windows 11 as a blessing in disguise when businesses are "forced" to move from Windows 10, now they can see there are other viable options.

Danox•22 minutes ago

It’s a blessing, Microsoft has always been mediocre throughout their entire history. It’s a shame that so many American and European vertical tech companies gave up in the late 1980s, and 1990s.

If you haven’t noticed, Microsoft has trouble competing when the playing field is even remotely level.

nullify88•about 1 hour ago

Hopefully this will cause Denmark and its banks to issue more Dankort cards

pelagicAustral•about 2 hours ago

How is that a sanction? seems like a blessing instead.

mg794613•about 1 hour ago

Never again America.

All your negotiation power across the world, gone, because of one Orange person.

And not because he secretly took power, because you elected him, twice.

ericmay•21 minutes ago

On the other hand, the US is still negotiating with lots of countries across the world, continuing to invest and be invested in, continuing to grow economically, and more.

Your personal point of view which primarily exists in a silo on the Internet does not match the viewpoints of most of the rest of the world, including folks in Europe.

So, yes again, America. That's how the world works.

Danox•31 minutes ago

Move on you won’t miss Microsoft and you will find new opportunities.

danielsamuels•about 1 hour ago

> [...] its chief prosecutor lost access to Microsoft services, including email

> [...] the program was aimed at refreshing the technologies used by the Dutch government in such a way that it would no longer be in a situation where it could lose access to critical systems at the whim of a foreign country

How does switching desktop OS help you retain access to email and payment services, neither of which care about your OS?

gcr•about 1 hour ago

Because the ICC and Dutch authorities could no longer access their bank accounts or emails because of sanctions Microsoft chose to enforce .

danielsamuels•about 1 hour ago

OK, and how does changing your desktop OS help with that? Does NixOS grant you access to a locked bank account where Windows 11 doesn't?

Danox•13 minutes ago

It will help. because it will kickstart their native software industry and may even encourage others throughout Europe to get back to work seriously in that area and look to compete, because actually there was no real reason for them to give up in the first place. All you need to do is look at the Brits with what they lost in Acorn and Arm technology.

SpicyLemonZest•27 minutes ago

It doesn't in and of itself, but there's no clear reason why the US government could not instruct Microsoft that sanctions include a prohibition on granting OS licenses which are likely to be used by sanctioned persons. They're trying to get ahead of things rather than do the bare minimum.

righthand•28 minutes ago

As a US citizen and FOSS lover, I am absolutely pleased about this. Tearing down and tearing out US tech giants will only be good for computing in the long run.

madhacker•40 minutes ago

FAFO America

2OEH8eoCRo0•33 minutes ago

Make sure we find out then! Part of our problem is there is never consequences for the fuck around part.

PorciiVorbesc•about 3 hours ago

I still don't get why EU governments and agencies don't standardize around an already existing industry proven OS the EU already has domestically, which is SUSE, and need to each go reinventing the wheel their own way, which leads to higher costs and more fragmentation across the EU.

I heard the reason was that NL doesn't know if SUSE will be sold off again and might end up in the hands of some US PE, but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies related to sovereign national security like those making operating systems. You can just do things when you want to. You literally have that power. Exercise it for once FFS.

dtech•about 2 hours ago

> I heard the reason was that NL doesn't know if SUSE will be sold off again and might end up in the hands of some US PE, but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies

The Dutch government can famously prevent sales of German and Luxembourgish companies yes.

PorciiVorbesc•about 2 hours ago

I meant the EU, at EU level, not the Dutch government. Also it's not like the Dutch government can't cooperate with the other EU members like Germany and Luxembourg on such vital topics. Unless of course trust inside the EU is so lackluster that the Dutch government can't be sure where Germany and Luxembourg will stand, in which case it's already over for the EU.

eterm•about 2 hours ago

The EU level doesn't have enforcement mechanisms, EU law is applied through member states changing their laws.

graemep•about 2 hours ago

Does the EU have the power to block sales of companies on national security grounds? Or to get member states to standardise on software?

Its probably a good thing they do not have a standard, or at this point it would be Windows and pushing change through at the EU level would not be fast.

Alexander-Barth•about 2 hours ago

For context, the US once prevented that a German company AIXTRON was sold to a Chinese investor in 2016 (perhaps for good reasons). To me it would sound like a good deal for the Netherlands and Luxembourg/Germany if Netherlands would uses SUSE and the Luxembourg/Germany would step in to keep in in the EU.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/12/02/us-blocks-chi...

p_l•about 2 hours ago

Might be related to NixOS being strongly related to Netherlands and them picking local

PorciiVorbesc•about 2 hours ago

Yeah well that's why the EU federal idea is and will be a failure. It wishes to be the challenger to the US and China hegemony in theory, but then every individual country wants to be its own special mini-boss in its own playground hoping they'll be at the top of the helm, that develops and uses its own separate things that will hopefully get adopted by the other EU members.

nutjob2•about 2 hours ago

You have it in reverse. A federal EU enables EU countries to pool sovereignty and strength to protect itself from the US and China. It neither needs to or wants to challenge anyone. A federal system allows EU wide decisions to be made quickly and without petty parochial concerns.

Constituent states rightly can choose to make their own decisions in matters like this, it hardly effects anyone else, and they can choose to collaborate.

cgio•about 2 hours ago

Is that why US failed while building CP/m, Unix a few, Dos, Windows, MacOs, OS/2,…? A successful market does not impose monopolies. The more, the merrier.

graemep•about 2 hours ago

> but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies related to sovereign national security like those making operating systems

Last time I looked it was a Swedish owned German company. The government of the Netherlands has limited power there. Given its history and performance its quite likely to get sold and might end up in American or Chinese hands or anything really.

p-e-w•about 2 hours ago

No problem. After the next election in the Netherlands, Microsoft only needs to promise to build a local headquarters there and the future government will roll back to Windows at twice the previous cost, which is exactly what happened in Munich.

98753579909754•about 2 hours ago

Sounds very social and very democratic.

Propelloni•about 2 hours ago

People make it sound as if Munich flip-flopped on Linux. The then ruling social-democrats and the greens started the LiMux project in 2003! The social-democrats and the conservative christians ruling in 2020 switched back to MS Windows. The current administration is mandating open source but not specifically Linux.

I use Linux since the year 2000 and it has been ruff in the early days, no doubt. The desktop competition were MS Windows 2000 and XP, often lauded as peak MS Windows. Apple had all but disappeared. But 2020 I'd wager that average KDE desktop vs. average MS Windows 10 desktop would be a draw. Today it would be a KDE desktop win, but that's more due to MS Windows 11 suckiness than the leaps and bounds Linux made.

MadrasThorn•about 2 hours ago

Trump attacking the Netherlands means transatlanticism is really dead.

I think this has a lot to do with how the case against Putin was built and Trump used his influence to disrupt it.

ParentiSoundSys•about 2 hours ago

It's because the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for committing war crimes.

jonnybgood•about 2 hours ago

The US had issue with the ICC since it first began in 2002. Multiple administrations saw it as a problem.

b5n•about 1 hour ago

Taking issue with accountability is a long lived American tradition enjoyed predominantly by those with wealth/power.

sickofparadox•about 2 hours ago

The year the ICC was established, Congress passed a law providing enduring authorization for a full scale military invasion of the Netherlands should the ICC imprison any US service member, government employee, or those of allied nations (including Israel).[1] It even prevents any level of the US government (local, state, or federal) from working to assist the ICC. Americans do not want to be beholden to a foreign court.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

MadrasThorn•about 2 hours ago

I'm probably wrong but I could have sworn there was an article that came out when Trump was elected something happened with data on microsoft accounts/server huh. I guess it's ungoogable right now. Might have just been hosted by US gov. Must have been funding related.

Anyway I don't support ICC grabbing power it does not have over other countries who do not sign on.

If the ICC wanted to be consistent they should target Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, ect

input_sh•about 1 hour ago

You'd be happy to know that ICC has also indicted three Hamas leaders (Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh). Granted all three were withdrawn because their deaths were confirmed, but you're presenting it as if ICC only indicted Israeli leaders, which is not the case.

petre•about 2 hours ago

> If the ICC wanted to be consistent they should target Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, ect

Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute and the court has not officially opened a case against Iranian leaders.

However, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, Commander-in-Chief of Hamas' military wing for war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the October 7 attacks.

antonvs•about 2 hours ago

And because Trump and co don't want to have to deal with such warrants against themselves.

It's the ultimate expression of US corruption. There's not even a pretense of fighting for justice any more, just fighting justice.

rapsey•about 2 hours ago

The EU is entirely subjugated to the US. No energy independence, militaries falling apart and out of date, no tech development or investment.

mittensc•about 2 hours ago

Maybe that's wrong?

The US can't even win a war in the middle east without NATO

What is the US going to do when China starts making their own moves?

bluGill•44 minutes ago

> The US can't even win a war in the middle east without NATO

That is false. The US could win a war in the middle east without NATO.

The US has consistently chosen not to attempt to do so, but there is every reason to think they could. It is good that the US mostly tries to work with NATO on the middle east (and bad that Trump has not).

The US has also consistently chosen to send minimal ground forces, and when they do send them they are very careful to protect the lives of their soldiers at the expense of winning.

However there remains every reason to think the US could make different decisions and win wars in the middle east alone.

jackb4040•32 minutes ago

The Europeans have some amount of leverage over the Americans, much smaller than the Americans have over them. But they use 100% of it to keep the Americans involved in the Ukraine War rather than to defend their own institutions / economies.

rapsey•about 2 hours ago

Outside the US, NATO countries have very little power projection capabilities. A bit of france, a bit of UK and then nothing.

flohofwoe•about 2 hours ago

The tricky thing these days is trying to figure out whether messages like this are coming from Russian or MAGA bots ;) In any case, good work comrade! Here's your potato / Trumpcoin. Now back into your troll cave.

andrewstuart•about 3 hours ago

Good thing the Netherlands isn’t the most critical single node for advanced chip equipment, cause that could become awkward.

Oh wait, it is.

But it’s ok because Us President has made it clear the the USA doesn’t need anything Europe has. So, not a problem.

petcat•about 2 hours ago

The US government already exerts extensive control over ASML's business. The Netherlands can't leverage it in any kind of strategic way because a large part of the technology itself is American and it's very hard to untangle. It's the true definition of a "multi national" company.

kalleboo•38 minutes ago

Do they exert any physical control (i.e. parts are made and shipped from North America), or is it just "Intellectual Property" and legal agreements that can be ignored?

This is an honest question, I'm trying my best to word it to not sound like a troll.

petcat•28 minutes ago

Yes the EUV/DUV light source itself is researched, developed, and manufactured in California.

ASML was permitted to acquire Cymer in 2013 during the Obama administration under a strict technology sharing and export control agreement with the US government.

The R&D, technology, manufacturing, and all other operations had to remain in the US.

https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/cymer

llm_nerd•about 2 hours ago

>a large part of the technology itself

A tiny fraction of the technology itself started as an ineffective "American" invention, copying a Japanese discovery/invention. In fact when ASML acquired the company, specifically because it couldn't do what they wanted and they needed to vastly improve it, a Japanese company had a superior product in the same space, but ASML saw the Japanese company as too much political baggage given how protectionist the Japanese often are.

How funny it all turned out, right?

postepowanieadm•about 2 hours ago

USA and Netherlands (alone, and within EU) have signed an agreement concerning that about two months ago.

clydethefrog•about 2 hours ago

The Dutch government let the USA store their nuclear weapons in the 60s in Vonkel already. We have long lost our sovereignty.

jackb4040•27 minutes ago

Don't worry. The more they slow ASML's progress, the closer it puts SMEE (China) to parity. Then we won't need to worry about sanctions ever again.

mytailorisrich•about 2 hours ago

There is a lot of noise for public consumption but the reality is that the US control the Netherlands and most European countries, and in fact while this noise has become louder in recent years so has the dependency of Europe on the US...

mupuff1234•about 2 hours ago

ASML sold nothing in Europe in 2026, they would implode if they stopped selling to US companies