Destroying protection from the sun – American becomes red (9)
I believe the answer is:
shredding
'destroying' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with contact as well as being present participle verbs.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'protection from the sun american becomes red' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'from' could be 'in' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'in' is present in the answer.
'sun' could be 's' (abbreviation) and 's' is found in the answer.
'red' could be 'r' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'r' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shredding that I've seen before include "Tearing into thin strips" , "Completely destroying (secret papers)" .)