Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 2/25/19

Trump tweeted Sunday that he would hold off on raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods after March 1, giving officials from Washington and Beijing some breathing room. Neither the White House nor USTR provided additional details Sunday night, including how long Trump would be extending the deadline. The president tweeted that if both sides keep making progress, a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be held at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club "to conclude an agreement."

"If all works well , we're going to have some very big news over the next week or two," Trump said in remarks Sunday evening to governors in town for their winter meeting.

Trump's chief trade negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, will testify Wednesday before the full House Ways & Means Committee and brief lawmakers on the status of the China talks. It gives Democrats their first chance to question Lighthizer on the record since taking over the majority in the House.

— More soybean sales? Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tweeted Friday that Beijing has agreed to purchase another 10 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans — and he said there's potentially "more good to news to come."

At the Ways & Means hearing, Lighthizer is also likely to face questions about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a round of public sparring as House Democrats and the Trump administration gear up for the ratification battle, which is expected to be one of the biggest legislative clashes this year.

Farm bill implementation will also be a major theme this week. First up is USDA's public meeting Tuesday about new programs in the 2018 law, H.R. 2 (115) , including the closely watched dairy margin coverage plan.

On Thursday, Perdue will meet with the Senate Agriculture Committee for a hearing on USDA's implementation efforts, which were hampered initially by the 35-day government shutdown. Perdue's also set to testify before the House Ag panel on Wednesday in a hearing focused on the state of the rural economy.

The hearings should reveal new details about USDA's implementation timeline — which have been scant so far — and, potentially, information on the department's trade aid program, Perdue's controversial plans to relocate a pair of ag research agencies and other areas of interest to lawmakers.

Also on tap: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb meets Wednesday with the House Appropriations Agriculture-FDA Subcommittee about the agency's "status of operations."

— One potential topic of discussion is FDA's scrambling during the shutdown to reboot certain high-risk food safety inspections. Many food safety advocates and consumer groups have warned that the record-long funding lapse could leave lasting scars on FDA's inspection work.

— And listen up for any word on FDA-USDA collaboration on a joint framework for regulating cell-based protein products, which appropriators have directed the agencies to finalize by mid-April.