Communist China is an existential threat.

It’s destroyed our jobs and stolen our secrets to build a massive military.

To prevent a war and keep the peace, we must bring out our secret weapon — the force that built our middle class, made America the global heart of innovation and crushed the Soviet Union without firing a shot. 

Freedom is the only way to leave Chinese Communism on the ash heap of history.

So imagine Beijing’s happiness that President Joe Biden is swapping freedom for socialism here in America.

He’s building the most powerful and controlling government in American history, weakening our country by crippling families.

Biden has spent a staggering $6 trillion and counting, growing government while driving inflation higher.

Sixty percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Half of families can’t afford diapers.

What kind of government is Biden building?

We have more than 42 million people on food stamps and nearly 100 million people on Medicaid.

Meanwhile, he’s spending trillions of dollars on taxpayer bailouts, handouts and carveouts for special interests.

The well-connected are getting wealthier through corporate welfare while the poor get trapped in regular welfare. That’s socialism.

As history shows, socialism kills the middle class.

We’re living through the biggest revolution since 1776 — and its polar opposite.

We are led by a president and party who believe central planners can run our lives better than we can.

Entire industries live or die based on Washington’s whims.

Biden is sending a message to every American: Don’t bother to dream; don’t bother to dare. Government’s got this.

Yet we became the greatest country the world has ever seen because we rejected that lie.

My Freedom Plan will take power from Washington and give it back to the American people. As history proves, they’re the only ones who will outcompete and ultimately defeat China.

Restoring freedom starts with financial freedom.

Every middle-class family will get thousands of dollars in tax relief.

We’ll completely eliminate the federal gas and diesel tax.

We’ll cut income taxes for working families.

And we’ll make the small-business relief in the 2017 tax cuts permanent.

The goal is to create a tax code that’s so simple, every family can understand it — no accountant needed.

That means getting rid of distortions that pick winners and losers.

Look at the state-and-local-tax deduction, which mostly benefits high-income people in high-tax states. We shouldn’t force Tennessee working-class families to subsidize a wealthy family in California.

And we should eliminate $500 billion in Biden’s green-energy subsidies.

We’ll restore freedom by ending the out-of-control spending that grows government and drives inflation.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama have added a combined $23 trillion to our national debt, pushing interest payments so high that we’re on track to spend more on interest than we pay for national defense.

I will veto any budget that doesn’t address our debt crisis.

We’ll return to pre-COVID spending levels.

And special interests won’t get a penny in taxpayer bailouts. 

Congress needs tough love. I’ll fight for zero-based budgeting, so Congress starts from scratch every year.

And if Congress fails to pass a budget, lawmakers won’t get a paycheck. No budget, no pay is a no-brainer.

So is reforming entitlements, the biggest item in our budget.

If we do nothing, Social Security will face cuts in 10 years and Medicare in eight.

I will keep these programs the same for anyone who’s in or nearing retirement.

To protect these programs for the next generation, I’ll limit benefits for wealthy people, raise the retirement age for younger people just entering the system, expand Medicare Advantage and increase competition.

Republicans and Democrats don’t want to talk about this. I will.

Finally, we’ll restore freedom by stopping Washington from controlling Americans ever again.

We’re beyond merely cutting red tape. We need to cut Washington itself down to size.

We’ll have term limits for politicians and bureaucrats. Congress will vote on every federal rule and regulation.

And we’ll push authority back to the states, from welfare to health care to education to infrastructure.

Biden doesn’t believe in the American people.

I do, and as I saw in South Carolina, that belief is rewarded.

After our textile mills closed, we refused to prop up the textile industry with government subsidies. We chose economic freedom.

When I was governor, we moved 35,000 people from welfare to work and cut unemployment from 11% to 4%.

People called us the “Beast of the Southeast.” We’ll do the same for all America.

A new birth of freedom will benefit every family with better jobs, bigger paychecks and a brighter future.

Yet the most important benefit will be greater national security.

Communist China is the worst threat we’ve faced in generations, yet it’s only been able to compete with us because our leaders have abandoned America’s principles.

Freedom is still our secret weapon. If we unlock it, Communist China doesn’t stand a chance because nothing is more powerful than the American people, armed with freedom.

Nikki Haley is a Republican candidate for president. She was governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations. Adapted from a speech she gave in New Hampshire Sept. 22.