Arrests American over payments (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspends
'arrests' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with contact as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'american over payments' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'US' (abbreviation for United States).
'over' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'payments' becomes 'spends' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'us' reversed gives 'su'.
'su'+'spends'='SUSPENDS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for suspends that I've seen before include "Shelves" , "Hangs from something" , "Brings to a temporary halt" , "Interrupts" , "Delays or postpones" .)