The White House has offered to provide a third $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine that would be contingent on the country's continued progress toward eliminating corruption and reforming taxes.
Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on November 5, said the United States was ready to help Ukraine, but Kyiv must first enact economic reforms
The U.S. financing and a $1.7 billion loan disbursement from the International Monetary Fund have been held up by squabbling between the Ukrainian parliament and Finance Ministry over proposed tax cuts.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned on November 4 that the near-deadlock over the level of planned tax cuts threatened to derail the government's 2016 budget and Western financing that is linked to it.
Lawmakers want steep cuts that the Finance Ministry says are not sustainable.
"We now have many allies in the West and these allies will stand with us so long as we show political will, responsibility and the unchanging nature of our goals and values as we carry out reform," he said. "We must all speak in one language."
