> the biggest company in the Netherlands and its products (ASML and high end lithography machines), is built on top of the works of only a handful of researchers.

This is... wildly wrong. ASML is a multi-national company that licenses IP largely from USA and Japan, but also Taiwan and Germany. The actual EUV light source is developed and produced in California by Cymer, which ASML acquired in 2013. But ASML was only permitted to acquire the company under a strict technology sharing and export control agreement with the US government. Additionally, a huge portion of the photolithography research is directly developed (and owned) by US companies and research organizations such as IBM, Albany NanoTech, and SEMATECH.

There is a reason why ASML's next-generation research photolithography machine is currently being installed and developed in upstate New York, and not somewhere in the Netherlands. The same reason that Cymer is still in San Diego instead of being relocated to Europe.

[0] https://www.eetimes.com/asml-to-build-400-million-us-researc...

[1] https://www.eetimes.com/asml-sematech-team-on-manufacturing-...

[2] https://research.ibm.com/blog/euv-center-albany-nstc

The laser and optics for the EUV light source are from the US?