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How Economies Could Grow With This Soft Skill
NZ's former PM says "rules-based order is not nostalgic".
She cites empathy as the motivator for order and growth.
Ardern advises on moments when standing against friends.
By Priscilla Wong, 06 Jun 2025
SINGAPORE - “I understand the drive to focus in on ourselves, and our own domestic challenges,” said Jacinda Ardern as she addressed students at the 2025 Yale Class Day in May this year. “They are pressing and they are real.”
But Ardern - a former prime minister of New Zealand - cautioned her audience against a tempting illusion that closing oneself from the world equates to prioritising a domestic population.Isolationism, she argued, is against anyone's long-term self-interest.The solution? Empathy in a rules-based order, claims Ardern, as she seeks to assure her audience that solutions to global problems is “not a zero-sum game” where one nation loses.
SINGAPORE - “I understand the drive to focus in on ourselves, and our own domestic challenges,” said Jacinda Ardern as she addressed students at the 2025 Yale Class Day in May this year. “They are pressing and they are real.”
But Ardern - a former prime minister of New Zealand - cautioned her audience against a tempting illusion that closing oneself from the world equates to prioritising a domestic population.Isolationism, she argued, is against anyone's long-term self-interest.The solution? Empathy in a rules-based order, claims Ardern, as she seeks to assure her audience that solutions to global problems is “not a zero-sum game” where one nation loses.
“Upholding a rules-based order is not nostalgic, or of another era.”Ardern’s speech echoed key points often highlighted in ministerial speeches made around the world since the Trump administration introduced the “Liberation Day tariffs” in April 2025.These speeches included that of Japan’s State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ogushi Masaki at the 2025 Raisina Tokyo conference on geoeconomics. Ogushi urged greater cross-country collaboration during current “heightened uncertainty” by building a “rules-based international economic order”.
Japan’s State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ogushi Masaki
Photo / Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Japan
How Does Such Empathy Look Like?
Ardern made it clear: empathy is nothing without action.
Empathy, Ardern told students at Yale University in May 2025, is “the reason you seek to make change, the thing that motivates you to keep going in difficult or trying circumstances”.
She illustrated this by referencing the 2019 mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques. As Prime Minister of New Zealand, Ardern won hearts by leading her government to ban semi-automatic weapons just 27 days after the shootings.
Photo / Getty
This was seen as a political anomaly in comparison to the United States, where several mass shootings have occurred over decades, with little or no change to national gun laws.
Her brand of empathy-driven leadership also saw Ardern openly admit to the media that the shootings revealed “weakness in legislation”.
When You Stand Against Friends
But the 45 year-old Ardern offered another pragmatic viewpoint: there will be moments when you stand against friends.
These moments, she said, reminds one that “it's not size, distance, or economic power that should define where you stand, but values. And that includes knowing and understanding just how connected we are.”
She highlighted examples in trade and the climate. “A warming planet does not produce extreme weather that respects borders,” said Ardern, a Trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize since April 2023.
“Empathy has never started a war,” said Ardern, as she approached the closing of her speech.
“And empathy teaches you that power is interchangeable with another word – responsibility.”
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