A report by Canal Caribe, authored by journalist Maricela Recasens, showcases the residential communities built by the real estate company Almex —a subsidiary of GAESA, which the regime now refers to as "GAE"— as evidence that the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration are unjust.
The video was published this Saturday in the Noticiero, and features interviews with Cuban officials who have been involved in various construction projects in the country. However, the data provided by the report reveals a blatant noncompliance that contradicts the official narrative.
The most striking example is the community Cubanacán, located west of Havana. The plan was approved in 2017 with the aim of building housing to relocate residents from tourist areas in Old Havana.
Nearly a decade later, the government admits that "out of a plan for 3,000 homes, 600 have been built and delivered," which is to say, 20% of what was originally promised, without mentioning any date for completing the rest.
The pattern is repeated in other projects
In Jaronú and Morón, an official states that there are "around 2,000 homes that we need to build over the course of three years," without specifying when that timeframe begins or ends.
In Antilla, Holguín, where the plan was approved in 2013 by Raúl Castro, there are only discussions of "700 houses built" after more than a decade. The plan is also without a completion date.
The systematic absence of definitive delivery dates is not a minor detail; rather, it is the mechanism that allows the regime to reallocate resources to other priorities without providing accountability to the Cuban people. Plans exist, but they are not fulfilled.
The newspaper Granma published on June 2 the first public defense of the regime regarding GAESA following U.S. sanctions, stating that the conglomerate has contributed to the construction of “more than 10,000 homes” over the past 30 years.
Presented as an achievement, that figure represents an average of only 333 homes per year over three decades, in a country facing a structural and chronic housing crisis.
The regime fails to fulfill housing construction plans
The Ministry of Construction (MICONS) only completed 39% of its annual plan in 2024: 5,262 of the 13,500 homes planned.
In the first quarter of 2025, the completion rate was 12.4%, with only 1,344 out of 10,795 planned homes finished. The ONEI recorded only 5,493 homes completed nationwide during 2025.
This structural incongruity—the State failing to fulfill its own plans while GAESA presents itself as a social benefactor—exposes the contradiction within the official discourse.
The 35% of the Cuban housing stock is in poor technical condition, and 59 municipalities did not complete the basic housing units planned for 2024 or 2025.
Canal Caribe is part of a broader media campaign
The deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA expired on June 5, one day before the release of the video from the official media.
Following Executive Order 14404 signed by Trump on May 1 and the formal designations made by Marco Rubio on May 7 against the conglomerate, several foreign companies have left Cuba, leaving GAESA without partners and new sources of revenue.
The name change from GAESA to "GAE," which the regime now uses in its media campaign, is revealing. It is a maneuver to distance the conglomerate from the negative image accumulated over decades of control and zero transparency in its operations.
The data provided by the official report tells a clear story. The homes delivered by GAESA in its various projects appear to number fewer than the 10,000 that the regime attributes to the conglomerate.
The social construction plan of GAESA is not a model to emulate, but rather a clear violation that the regime tries to disguise as a social achievement. It conceals a greater tragedy: Cuban families have been displaced from their communities to build, successfully, hotels in tourist areas, which today have completely empty rooms.
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