A potentially huge economic and social-assistance package from Caracas to Nicaragua to be announced this week will help kill off US ambitions of maintaining its influence in Central America, Venezuela said on the weekend.

The package, which Hugo Chávez, the vehemently anti-US Venezuelan leader, plans to outline on Thursday comes as Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s former leftwing guerrilla leader, will return to power for the first time in almost 17 years.