MATCH Act

The MATCH Act focuses on advanced machines and tools used to make high‑end computer chips. It tells key U.S. agencies to identify which chip‑making tools give the United States and its allies a strong advantage, and which foreign factories use them to make advanced chips. These tools and factories become the main targets of new export controls. Within 60 days of becoming law, and then every year, agency leaders must review and list all covered semiconductor manufacturing equipment and covered facilities. They must send these lists to certain committees in Congress. A covered facility is generally a factory in a listed “country of concern” that makes advanced‑node chips, or is tied to certain named Chinese and other entities involved in chip or equipment production. The bill requires U.S. officials to quickly work with allied supplier countries that also make chip‑making tools. They are asked to adopt broad, country‑wide controls and a presumption of denying licenses for exports and servicing of covered tools to listed countries and facilities. Within 90 days, officials must brief Congress on the progress of these diplomatic efforts, including incentives used and which allies have or have not adopted these controls. If, within 150 days, some allied supplier countries have not adopted these controls, the bill directs agencies to expand U.S. jurisdiction and impose extra restrictions on exports from those countries. This includes setting country‑wide controls on covered equipment and requiring licenses, with a denial policy, for servicing and exporting certain items to covered facilities. Agencies may delay this 150‑day deadline once, for up to 90 more days, if they certify that the delay serves U.S. national security and that allies are taking clear steps toward aligned controls. The act also creates ongoing reporting duties. Within 180 days and then yearly, agencies must report to Congress on which tools and facilities are covered, what controls have been put in place by the United States and allies, what diplomatic efforts have been made to close gaps, and whether exports and servicing to countries of concern and covered facilities are subject to a denial‑policy license requirement. The bill allows agencies to ease or end some U.S. controls when an allied supplier country adopts comparable restrictions, and to re‑impose them if that ally later weakens its policies. The law would apply the same rulemaking and court‑review process used in the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. It also includes a five‑year sunset: the act ends five years after it takes effect, though actions and obligations started earlier can continue. The bill defines many key terms, including which countries are “countries of concern” (such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and certain others), what counts as covered equipment, and what “servicing” includes.