The Cuban researcher Lorenzo Vega-Montoto, Doctor of Chemical Sciences and Senior Researcher at the Idaho National Laboratory, published an article this Friday on the CubaxCuba portal in which he dismantles the package of 176 economic measures approved by the National Assembly in June and warns that what the regime promotes as a historical transformation is nothing more than a change of shell: the same animal with the same claws.
The analysis begins with the official slogan of the package: "Without ever renouncing socialism, do what is necessary to preserve the essential." For Vega-Montoto, "the essential" is not the well-being of the average Cuban, but rather the power of the leadership, "the same leadership, the same single Party, intact, now managing hope as it manages scarcity."
The measures—which eliminate the cap of 100 workers for private companies, authorize private banking and direct foreign investment, and deepen dollarization—arrived at the worst possible moment: 89% of Cuban families in extreme poverty according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, blackouts lasting between 20 and 40 continuous hours, an average salary of 13 dollars per month, and an exodus of over 1.7 million people between 2020 and 2025, the largest in the history of the Island.
The Prime Minister Manuel Marrero acknowledged this while presenting the package: Cuba is going through "one of the most complex moments since the Special Period." Vega-Montoto interprets that phrase not as a diagnosis but as a confession.
The academic references the concept of political scientist Javier Corrales —the "goalkeeper state"— to explain the mechanism: Cuba does not thrive by generating growth but by managing access to capitalism, deciding who gets in and who stays out. Economists Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López documented eight cycles of this back-and-forth, and in all cases, the reversals were driven by the leadership's fear of losing political control, not by economic calculation, he notes.
The most explosive point of the analysis is the figure of Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, nicknamed "The Crab" by his own grandfather. On July 7, USA Today published the first profile of a member of the Castro family in 70 years, in which the colonel of the Ministry of the Interior — head of Raúl Castro's escort and son of the deceased general who presided over GAESA — presented himself as the manager of the transformation from the patriarch's office.
The colonel's statements, at 42 years old, immediately sparked outrage. "I've never been interested in politics, but if the revolution needs me to step forward, I will," he asserted. The interview took place with the colonel wearing a Hugo Boss t-shirt and Hermès sneakers, holding classified reports in a Salvatore Ferragamo briefcase, while power outages surpassed 24 continuous hours. When asked about that disparity, he replied, "It pains me that people can't live like I do," but stated he gets up "every day to change that situation."
Regarding GAESA, the conglomerate that her father built, she downplayed its significance to "around fifteen percent" of the economy. USA Today noted that "it could not verify this"; external estimates place it between 30% and 40% of GDP, accounting for nearly 90% of retail and enjoying complete exemption from audits.
Israel Rojas, leader of the duo Buena Fe and for decades a cultural voice loyal to the government, publicly broke ranks and apologized, stating he was “naïve”: “I would never lend my support to justify such things. Let them defend themselves.” An official from the Ideological Department of the Central Committee further sank the ship by confirming that Cangrejo is negotiating with Washington at the direction of “the highest leadership of the country,” acknowledging in writing that the dynasty exists and holds power.
From Washington, the State Department described the measures as "superficial smoke signals" and Secretary Marco Rubio sanctioned new entities of GAESA. Cangrejo himself admitted this when asked if the negotiations had borne fruit: “I would like to answer yes... but the reality is no”.
Vega-Montoto warns that the 2019 Constitution has left the trap written down: its Article 229 prohibits amending the clause that declares socialism to be "irrevocable." The regime needs to reform the economy to survive, but it has made it legally impossible to reform its own power. "What changes are the names—Rectification, Special Period, Update, Ordering, the 176 measures—and what remains is the grammar: to loosen in order not to let go, to concede in order not to yield," the academic writes.
The article —titled "Chronicle of an Announced Metamorphosis: The Crab that Wants to be a Butterfly"— concludes with a statement that references its headline: "If anything is going to revitalize Cuba, if anything has always revitalized it, it is not the shell that sheds, but the people who resist beneath it, those who have reached the limit of resilience and are still standing. That people do not need the next opening to be managed for them; they need, for the first time in sixty-seven years, for no one to steal it away from them."
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