Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma visited Washington this week to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress to oppose the MATCH Act, a bill that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment, and one that would hit ASML especially hard.

ASML, based in the Netherlands, is Europe’s most valuable company and the only maker in the world of the sophisticated lithography machines that are used to make cutting-edge AI chips.

“It’s exceptional that I’m coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress,” Sjoerdsma told Bloomberg after the meetings. “The stakes for the Netherlands may be very high.”

China accounts for 19% of ASML’s net system sales. The MATCH Act would go further than existing controls, extending curbs to ASML’s deep ultraviolet immersion machines on top of the long-standing ban on its most advanced extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, tools reaching China.

As ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet told TechCrunch in May, what China can currently buy are older-generation deep ultraviolet tools — gear first shipped about a decade ago — the same machines the MATCH Act would now relegate off limits.

The bill, introduced in April, hasn’t yet faced a full House or Senate vote; Bloomberg notes it would likely need to be folded into a larger package to pass.

The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), in collaboration with the Global Fund and key implementing partners, will convene a national close-out meeting on 25 June to reflect on the achievements, lessons learned, and lasting impact of the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) investments in Nigeria.

The meeting, to be held in Abuja, will bring together representatives of the Federal Ministry of Health, state governments, development partners, civil society organisations, implementing partners, healthcare workers, and other stakeholders who played critical roles in implementing the C19RM grant between 2021 and 2025.

The Global Fund’s COVID-19 Response Mechanism was established to support countries in mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while strengthening health systems and safeguarding progress against HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. In Nigeria, the investment supported a wide range of interventions to strengthen public health preparedness and response capacities, including improvements in disease surveillance, laboratory systems, infection prevention and control, oxygen infrastructure, cold-chain systems, healthcare workforce capacity, and emergency response mechanisms.

The Director-General of NACA, Temitope Ilori, said, “We learned through COVID-19 that being prepared for one emergency isn’t just about that emergency, it’s about being prepared for any emergency.

“C19RM investments in emergency response mechanisms, supply chain resilience, and rapid deployment capacity are now embedded in our health systems planning and programming.”

The close-out meeting will provide an opportunity to showcase key achievements recorded under the grant, examine lessons from implementation, highlight innovations and best practices, and discuss strategies for sustaining the gains made through the investment.

The event will also feature presentations from implementing agencies and partners, stakeholder reflections, panel discussions, and the premiere of documentary and storytelling products developed to capture the human impact and legacy of the C19RM investment across Nigeria.

Tajudeen Ibrahim, executive secretary, Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) Nigeria, said, “The C19RM grant demonstrated the power of effective partnership, positioning, coordination, engagement, oversight and country ownership in responding to a public health emergency.

“Beyond supporting Nigeria’s COVID-19 response, the investments have strengthened critical health systems and facilitated pandemic preparedness and response capacities that will continue to benefit the country for years to come. As we close this chapter, our focus must remain on sustaining these gains and leveraging the lessons learned to build a more resilient health system for all Nigerians.”

Speaking ahead of the event, stakeholders noted that the close-out meeting is not only an opportunity to celebrate achievements but also to strengthen the collective commitment to building resilient health systems that can respond effectively to future public health emergencies.

As Nigeria continues to strengthen its health security architecture, the lessons and investments from the COVID-19 Response Mechanism remain an important foundation for future preparedness, disease control, and health system resilience.

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The close-out meeting is expected to attract senior government officials, development partners, public health experts, implementing organisations, and representatives from communities that benefited from the intervention.

Attendance Information

Attendance at the C19RM Close-Out Meeting is by invitation only and will include representatives from government institutions, development partners, implementing organisations, civil society, academia, and other key stakeholders involved in implementing the C19RM grant.

Members of the public and interested stakeholders who are not attending in person are encouraged to participate virtually through the event livestream.

Livestream Details: https://bit.ly/c19rm

About COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM)

The COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) is a special funding mechanism established by the Global Fund to support countries in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigating its impact on HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria programmes, and strengthening health and community systems for future emergencies.