Fellow American needs genuine protection? No (7)
I believe the answer is:
refusal
'no' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'fellow american needs genuine protection?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'fellow' could be 'f' (abbreviation - of a society etc.) and 'f' is found in the answer.
'american' could be 'usa' and 'usa' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
(Other definitions for refusal that I've seen before include "Chance to decline" , "Failure to accept" , "maybe never" , "Dissent" , "Negation" .)