Courts offering protection to American country (7)
I believe the answer is:
austria
'country' is the definition.
(Austria is an example)
'courts offering protection to american' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'american' could be 'us' (United States) and 'us' is found in the answer.
'courts' could be 'atria' (atrium is a kind of court) and 'atria' is present in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for austria that I've seen before include "Central European country" , "Capital city is Vienna" , "Us tiara found in a European state" , "Republic of central Europe" , "Mountainous European republic" .)