Two things happened in Congress this week that, taken together, tell you everything about where American technology policy actually stands.
The first is the MATCH Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) in the House and Sens. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Andy Kim (D-NJ) in the Senate. It would ban the sale of DUV immersion lithography machines to China and, more significantly, ban servicing, spare parts, and software updates for the machines China has already bought. It names five Chinese semiconductor facilities by name, including SMIC, Huawei, and YMTC, and cuts them off entirely. Bipartisan. Clear target. Specific enforcement mechanism. Cosponsors include Chuck Schumer on the left and John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on China, on the right.
The second is everything else Congress is doing on AI, which is a mess.
The Chip Ban That Actually Makes Sense
Previous rounds of export controls, starting in October 2022, banned sales of EUV lithography machines to China. EUV is the bleeding edge, needed for chips below 7 nanometers. But those controls left DUV machines unrestricted. DUV is older technology, but it is not harmless. SMIC proved that in 2023 when it used DUV multi-patterning to build 7nm chips for Huawei's Mate 60 Pro phone. Seven nanometers is enough for competitive AI inference chips, smartphone processors, and military applications.
China exploited the gap aggressively. ASML's own figures show China represented 33% of its system sales in 2025 and hit 42% in Q3 alone. The Netherlands introduced partial DUV restrictions in January 2024, banning ASML's most advanced DUV systems, but older models remained available. China bought as many as it could.
The MATCH Act closes that door. It also goes further by banning after-sales servicing, which means the machines China already has will degrade over time without replacement parts and software updates. ASML expects China to drop to roughly 20% of total sales in 2026 as a result.
What this means for regular people: The chips that go in your phone, your car, your thermostat, and your laptop are overwhelmingly built on mature manufacturing nodes, the exact kind that DUV machines produce. Cutting off China's ability to produce these chips removes supply from the global market. DRAM prices already spiked 170% in 2025 because AI data centers consumed 70% of production. Industry analysts project PC, tablet, and smartphone prices rising 10 to 20% by end of 2026. The MATCH Act won't cause that overnight, but it tightens the same supply chain that's already under pressure from every direction.
What this means for legislators and policy writers: The MATCH Act is one of the few technology bills that does exactly what it says. It identifies a specific loophole (DUV sales to adversaries), names the entities exploiting it, and provides a clear enforcement mechanism. It also applies the same restrictions to Russia and Iran through the "countries of concern" framework. It has bipartisan sponsors in both chambers. If you are looking for a model of how technology export controls should work, this is it.
The AI Governance Disaster
Now compare that to what Congress is doing on artificial intelligence.
There is no comprehensive federal AI law. There are roughly a dozen bills in various stages of progress, most of them messaging vehicles, a few of them genuinely dangerous, and one or two that might actually help.
The genuinely dangerous one: Sen. Elissa Slotkin's AI Guardrails Act (S. 4113) sounds good on paper. It bans the Department of Defense from using autonomous weapons to kill without human authorization, bans AI-driven mass surveillance of Americans, and keeps AI out of nuclear launch decisions. Three sensible prohibitions. But Section 4 of the bill allows the Secretary of Defense to waive all three for up to one year if "extraordinary circumstances" require it. The waiver is renewable. Congress gets notified after the fact but does not need to approve it. This bill doesn't ban autonomous weapons. It creates the legal framework for authorizing them while claiming to ban them. Critics have called it a Trojan horse, and they're not wrong.
The messaging bill: The GUARDRAILS Act from Sen. Brian Schatz and Rep. Don Beyer would repeal Trump's December 2025 executive order that tried to preempt state AI laws. The problem: every cosponsor is a Democrat. It has zero Republican support. It will not pass in this Congress. The bill exists to stake a position, not to become law.
The one that might work: Sen. Ed Markey's Youth AI Privacy Act targets AI chatbots interacting with minors. It requires chatbots to disclose they are not human, bans mining children's data for model training, and prohibits ads targeting minors through chat interfaces. It has the best bipartisan odds of any AI bill in Congress because "protect the children" is one of the few arguments that still crosses party lines. The related KIDS Act already passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 28 to 24 on March 5.
Who Actually Writes the Rules
The real fight is not about what the rules should be. It is about who gets to write them.
The White House is winning through executive action. Trump's December 2025 executive order created a DOJ "AI Litigation Task Force" to sue states with AI regulations. It directed the FTC to classify state-mandated AI bias mitigation as deceptive trade practices. It threatened to withhold $42 billion in broadband funding from states that keep AI rules on the books. In March, the White House released a legislative framework explicitly calling on Congress to preempt state AI laws. The message: only the federal government should regulate AI, and the federal government should regulate it lightly.
The states are not waiting. There are 78 chatbot safety bills across 27 states active in 2026. California, Colorado, Texas, and Illinois have already enacted AI laws. Connecticut is pursuing a cluster of targeted bills covering data privacy, consumer protection, minor safety, and AI discrimination, backed by both the governor and the attorney general. States are legislating because Congress won't.
Congress keeps introducing bills and passing nothing comprehensive. The defense authorization bill is the most likely vehicle for any AI provisions to actually become law, and it notably excluded federal preemption after bipartisan pushback.
Meanwhile, the EU AI Act hits full applicability on August 2, 2026. All rules for high-risk AI systems, transparency obligations, and enforcement powers with fines up to 7% of global revenue go live in four months. While America argues about jurisdiction, Europe will have a working rulebook.
The Split Screen
The MATCH Act shows that Congress can write clear, targeted technology policy when the political incentives align. Bipartisan sponsors, named targets, specific enforcement, real consequences. It works because both parties agree that China having advanced chipmaking capability is a national security threat.
AI governance has no such consensus. Republicans want federal preemption and light regulation. Democrats want state authority and stronger rules. The White House wants executive control. The defense establishment wants flexibility. Consumer advocates want accountability. The result is a legislative environment where a bill that sounds like it bans autonomous weapons actually creates the legal mechanism to deploy them, while the bill that would protect children from chatbots is one of the few things that might actually pass.
If you are a voter, a parent, a worker whose job involves AI, or anyone who interacts with a chatbot, a recommendation algorithm, or an automated decision system, the rules governing those tools are being written right now. The question is whether they'll be written by your state legislature, by executive order, by a Congress that can't agree on scope, or by Europe. The answer, right now, is all four at once, and none of them are talking to each other.