American in residence supplying drilling tools (7)
I believe the answer is:
reamers
'drilling tools' is the definition.
'american in residence' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'amer' (rare abbreviation).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'residence' becomes 'res'.
'amer' going into 'res' is 'REAMERS'.
'supplying' is the link.
(Another definition for reamers that I've seen is " bores".)
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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