Grounds to invest in South America (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspends
'grounds to' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'invest in south america' is the wordplay.
'invest' becomes 'spend' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'south' becomes 's' (abbreviation).
'america' becomes 'US' (United States).
's'+'us'='sus'
'spend' going inside 'sus' is 'SUSPENDS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for suspends that I've seen before include "Temporarily prevents from continuing" , "Hangs from something" , "Bars temporarily, from school say" , "Hangs freely" , "Interrupts" .)