A day after Haley went on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement noting that, while sanctions were being considered, a decision hasn't yet been made.
Speaking to Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear, professor Steve Keen and journalist Dmitry Babich suggested that even if the Trump administration were to enact another round of sanctions against Russia, it would only help strengthen the Russian economy.
"In the long run these sanctions may have a healthy effect on the Russian economy," Babich told show hosts Brian Becker and Walter Smolarek. "These sanctions, ironically, are going to turn these richest Russian companies to look into Russia."
"The other fact is that these companies won't be able to make transactions in dollars because this will make them vulnerable to US financial authorities, so these companies may switch to maybe the euro or other currencies… in the long run it's going to have a negative impact on the United States. The US has profited immensely from foreign companies preferring to make their transactions in dollars," he added.
Agreeing with Babich, Keen, a professor of economics at London's Kingston University, told Becker that "this sort of behaviour by [US President Donald] Trump puts a very large iron bar on the wheel of deregulating trade."
"It'll force a lot of companies to think we simply can't cope with this instability in our supply chain," Keen said, before stating that new sanctions would push Russian companies to conduct their business "domestically than internationally and run the risk of hand grenades being held by Trump."
"It'll encourage Russia to consider developing domestic industries more," Keen stressed.