"The time for waiting on North Korea to get its act together is over," said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. | Getty McCarthy: House to vote on North Korean sanctions next week

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the House will vote on sanctions against North Korea next week in response to the nation's continued nuclear weapons testing.

"The time for waiting on North Korea to get its act together is over," he said in a statement released Thursday.


According to McCarthy, the sanctions, called the Korean Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act, will target the rogue state's shipping industry as part of an attempt to crack down on their slave labor market. The bill was introduced by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce.

McCarthy said the bill “will deliver a strong and bipartisan message that North Korea and its provocations must be addressed now.”

“The policy of ‘strategic patience’ towards North Korea simply allowed North Korea to charge full steam ahead in developing its nuclear weapons program," McCarthy added.

The vote comes as tensions between the hermit nation and the U.S. continue. In a Reuters interview published Thursday President Donald Trump said "there is a chance" the U.S. could be drawn into "a major, major conflict with North Korea," despite calling for continued diplomatic exchanges between the two countries.

Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. would prefer to resolve the matter of North Korea's nuclear proliferation through direct talks.

"But North Korea has to decide they're ready to talk to us about the about the right agenda," he said, "and the right agenda is not simply stopping where they are for a few more months or a few more years and then resuming things.