Inter-Industry Advisory Council for Trade Negotiations

Established in late 1972, the Inter-Industry Council for Trade Negotiations (IIAC-TN) by National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) staff director for International Economic Affairs (IEA) Nicholas E. Hollis- was initially designed to mobilize an industry-wide study of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to bolster industry support for stronger participation in the multilateral trade negotiations process.

IIAC-TN was launched as a project of NAM's Task Force on NTBs chaired by Samuel E. MacArthur, chairman and chief executive of Federal-Mogul Corporation - a Fortune 500 ball bearing manufacturing company headquartered outside Detroit - and began mobilizing during a conference held on November 10, 1972, in Washington, D.C.

The convened group of industry trade association executives, representing some twenty major sectors were encouraged by Peter M. Flanigan, assistant to President Nixon for international economic affairs and also heard a proposed action plan presented by N.E.

Hollis, who provided survey kits for NTB fact-finding to each attendee which could be replicated by each association as their own project At a follow-up conference on April 24, 1973, the association presidents expressed their approval of a more ambitious plan based on the apparent success of their respective NTB project survey returns- and their industry members’ response—and the Inter-Association Trade Group (IATG) was formed later that year.

IATG also helped NAM's extended global outreach on the world stage exemplified in association leadership within the US-European Businessmen's Council (a program which Hollis initially sparked while serving in the US Chamber of Commerce several years earlier), the US-Soviet Trade Conference (February 1973) which convened nearly 900 US business executives with a high level Soviet delegation led by Vice Minister for Foreign Trade V.S.