International trade negotiations often impact deals, but never before have the two seemed so enmeshed.

The big picture: Pending transactions have become high-stakes bargaining chips, in at least three situations.

🇨🇳 Situation 1: TikTok

U.S.-China is the world's most significant trade dispute, and keeps escalating.

• TikTok is hardly the centerpiece, but it has outsized political implications for domestic audiences in both countries. Capitulation will be noticed.
• The latest is President Trump saying that he might just delay the divestiture deadline a bit longer until a trade deal can be worked out — even though the two countries haven't begun formal talks. Would that be legal? Nope. But neither were Trump's two prior extensions.
• One wrinkle is that TikTok's continued existence is complicating life for Trump's FTC lawyers, who are trying to argue that Meta operates a social media monopoly.

🇬🇧 Situation 2: Shein

European countries are becoming rope in the tug-of-war between the U.S. and China, and Shein could give Beijing a little leverage with London.

• The fast-fashion giant last week received U.K. approval for its IPO, which would be a huge boon for the London Stock Exchange, but hasn't yet gotten sign-off from Beijing.
• Shein also got hammered by the Trump administration's removal of the de minimis exemption for Chinese imports, and has said it will raise prices on U.S. consumers beginning later this week.

🇯🇵 Situation 3: U.S. Steel

The U.S. and Japan are engaged in bilateral trade talks, although there are unresolved disagreements.

• Much like the TikTok situation, U.S. Steel's fate should be viewed more through a political prism than an economic one. Its agreement to be acquired by Nippon Steel was a topic of conversation earlier this year between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and came up again on Friday when the president was asked about it by reporters.
• "I have great respect for Nippon," Trump replied. "But we want to have U.S. Steel remain in this country."
• In other words, he still opposes the deal (as he has since it was first announced).
• That comment could give U.S. Steel pretext to sue, if Trump blocks the deal after a revived national security review — arguing, as it did after President Biden's initial block — that the outcome was predetermined, regardless of the CFIUS investigation.

Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF) on Friday received Federal Reserve approval for its $35.3 billion takeover of Discover Financial (NYSE: DFS).

Why it matters: This was the final regulatory hurdle before creating the country's largest credit card issuer.

Yes, but: The Fed and the FDIC fined Discover $150 million for overcharging customers, having misclassified consumer credit cards as commercial, plus ordered Discover to pay $1.225 billion in restitution.

The bottom line: "The deal's a huge win for Capital One, not just in terms of its new scale, but because it will no longer have to rely on someone else to process its cardholders' payments." — Pete Gannon, Axios

🚑 PhotoPharmics, a Salt Lake City-based developer of light therapy for Parkinson's, raised $6m in Series B extension funding led by Kickstart Fund. axios.link/3Y7aRfs

• Brandlight, an Israeli brand marketing startup, raised $5.75m in pre-seed funding co-led by Cardumen Capital and G20 Ventures. axios.link/4d0cjGV

🚑 NiaHealth, a Canadian preventative health-care startup, raised C$2.5m in pre-seed funding led by Version One Ventures. axios.link/3RnWijY

• Ares acquired a majority stake in Epika Fleet Services, a Nashville-based provider of preventative maintenance and repair services for commercial trucking fleets. epikafleet.com

• Argand Partners acquired Ballet Makers (dba Capezio), a Totowa, N.J.-based dance apparel brand. capezio.com

• Carlyle is in talks to be a white knight buyer for Makino Milling Machine (Tokyo: 6135), which received an unsolicited $1.6b takeover bid from Nidec (Tokyo: 6594), per Reuters. axios.link/3S0prlm

• Cumming Group, a Westport, Conn.-based portfolio company of New Mountain Capital and Tailwind Capital, merged with Phoenix-based semiconductor advisory firm World Wide Professional Services. axios.link/4is38Qv

• KKR and I Squared Capital are among the bidders for a district cooling plant owned by Abu Dhabi's Multiply Group, per Reuters. axios.link/4lAVjLb

• MidOcean Partners agreed to buy GSTV (fka Gas Station TV) from Rockbridge Growth Equity. No financial terms were disclosed, but a source puts the price-tag at around $550m. axios.link/42Fpg3M

• Ondex Automation, a Chicago-based portfolio company of Shore Capital Partners, acquired NeoMatrix, a factory automation system integrator. ondex.ai

• Superior Concrete Products, a portfolio company of MAG Capital Partners, acquired AFTEC, a Salt Lake City-based provider of precast concrete wall-forming systems. concretefence.com

• Chagee (Nasdaq: CHA) shares climbed 15.85% on their first day of post-IPO trading, giving the Chinese teahouse operator nearly a $6b market cap.

• Argand Partners completed a dividend recap for Sigma Engineered Solutions, a Gardner, N.C.-based provider of precision metal components. axios.link/4ilUumt

• France's securities regulator blocked Bollere (Paris: BOLL) from acquiring 100% stakes in three units, following objections from minority shareholders. axios.link/4cFroNT

🌎 ICL Group (TASE: ICL) of Israel agreed to buy Lavie Bio, a provider of AI-designed sustainable farming solutions, from Evogene (Nasdaq: EVGN), for $18.75m. lavie-bio.com

• Italy's government will allow UniCredit's (Milan: UCG) €13b takeover of Banco BPM (Milan: BAMI) to proceed, once certain conditions are fulfilled. axios.link/43WHD6O

• WWE, a unit of TKO Group (NYSE: TKO) acquired Mexican lucha libre promotion AAA. axios.link/3EsnZFq

• Vacasa (Nasdaq: VSCA) rejected a sweetened buyout offer from Davidson Kempner, saying it wasn't superior to its agreement to be acquired by Casago.

• Five Arrows raised €2b for its sixth secondaries fund. axios.link/3ExJuVk

• Keppel of Singapore raised around US$1.5b for three new funds, including its latest data center vehicle. axios.link/4jlUFj6

• Navis Capital Partners raised $230m for a continuation vehicle led by TPG NewQuest, which will support K-12 education assets in Navis' eighth fund. axios.link/42xyxfP

• TDK Ventures, a corporate VC arm of Japan's TDK Corp., launched a $150m third fund. tdk-ventures.com

• Yale's endowment is selling up to $6b of private equity assets, per Secondaries Investor. axios.link/44ASzal

• Eric Barton joined Corinthia Global Management as a managing director. He previously was with Manulife Investment Management. axios.link/4imirdm

Phillips 66 this morning went on the attack against Elliott Investment Management, which has been pushing the Houston-based oil refiner to sell or spin off its midstream business.

• In a shareholder letter, Phillips 66 accuses Elliott of being conflicted, because an Elliott portfolio company is simultaneously bidding for Phillips 66 competitor Citgo.

Look ahead: The dispute should get settled next month at a Phillips 66 shareholder meeting, with both sides having nominated directors.