Two Cuban economists described it as "absurd" and "a failure" the decision of several provinces to reimpose price caps on basic products such as oil, eggs, powdered milk, sugar, and sausages, just weeks after the regime itself had removed them as part of its economic reform package.
The contradiction is glaring: on June 19, the National Assembly ratified the so-called 176 economic transformations, which explicitly included the end of centralized price controls, arguing that the previous caps had led to shortages and diversions to the black market. In less than two months, the provincial authorities of Villa Clara, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguín, and Matanzas began to unilaterally and uncoordinatedly set new limits.
Pedro Monreal, a Cuban economist with a strong presence on social media, summarized the assessment with a striking phrase on his Facebook profile: "176 measures and one single achievement: proving that they learned nothing."
Monreal also pointed out that "the supposed more liberalizing approach of the 176 measures faded in less than two months" and drew an unfavorable comparison with the failed Tarea Ordenamiento of 2021: that reform, he stated, at least had "an explicit and quantified design for the correction of relative prices," while the 176 measures lack even public evidence of an equivalent prior design.
The economist Elías Amor, author of the Cubaeconomía blog, was equally forceful: "The communist party deciding the commercial margins and retail prices. Turn it off and let's go."
Amor described what happened as "an unrealistic absurdity of the economic model that has dominated Cuba since 1959" and warned that Agreement 157, approved on Saturday by the Provincial Council of Villa Clara—which set the price of eggs at 110 pesos each, oil at 2,500 pesos per liter, and powdered milk at 3,120 pesos per kilogram—led to "an immediate shortage of essential goods and services."
The triggering factor of the decline is an inflationary surge that exceeded any official forecast. Oil, which was around 1,500 pesos in April, surpassed 4,000 pesos in August, with peaks of up to 7,000 pesos per liter in some areas of the country.
Amor also pointed out that the problem is not limited to Villa Clara: "The absurdity does not reside only in Villa Clara but extends to the municipality of Guantánamo's Administrative Council, in this case, to regulate the price of oil, which has recently increased to reach 6,000 pesos or more per unit."
The population received the new controls with skepticism. In response to the announcement of reference prices in San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, an internet user summarized the general sentiment: "I'll believe it when I see it."
The history supports the doubts: in February of this year, a similar exercise in Guantánamo resulted in 1,538 fines and 162 forced sales without prices stabilizing in a lasting way. Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged on June 18 that the previous price caps "caused shortages, deviations towards illegality, and reduced revenue," an argument that is now evident as the cycle repeats itself.
Amor concluded that the solution lies not in state controls but in the free market: "Cubans must understand that this mechanism is possible and that it can and should work in Cuba's economy once the current model, which is unable to provide a supply of oil at an acceptable price, is replaced."
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