House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.) called for more sanctions against North Korea in light of the country's apparent cyber attack against Sony.
"At this point, we need to respond as a country," Royce said during a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt.
Royce suggested that the U.S. take action to freeze the assets of banks that clandestinely traffic funds to North Korea.
"I think now would be the time. Now we have the rationale to go forward and put those sanctions in place," Royce said. "Now I passed that legislation, Hugh, over to the Senate. But my Senate colleagues haven’t taken it up. I would say now’s the time to have that leverage, pass it, put the sanctions on North Korea that would give him a choice between compromise on that nuclear program or economic collapse."
Royce laid out the significance of action.
"One is react by showing that there’s a cost of this kind of assault into the United States, show that anyone who’s going to attempt it is going to face a very real cost. And second, we’ve got to go forward with cyber infrastructure security."