A significant body of literature within International Relations research attests to a securitization of poverty, since 9/11 especially, and within this process to the centrality of discourse. Remarkably, there has been little reciprocal work within Discourse Analysis to scrutinize the emergence of contemporary security agendas of non-traditional security issues and, as far as we were able to discern, nothing at all of the securitization of poverty. This article reports on part of a larger study into transatlantic representations of international poverty. It responds to the evident need of interdisciplinary research into the securitization of poverty by examining the discursive construction of poverty by United States administrations before and after 9/11. Adopting a Discourse Historical Analysis approach, we examine selected US National Security Strategies for evidence that supports or otherwise makes claims in International Relations literature for the American securitization of poverty. We ultimately co...