The economist Elías Amor declared the 176 transformations approved by the Cuban regime in 2026 —including the new Housing Law 187— as "lost opportunities for the economy to emerge from a black hole it will not be able to escape." He stated this emphatically during a live interview with journalist Tania Costa.
The statement arose from a comment made by a viewer who challenged the economist with a phrase that encapsulates the feelings of many Cubans abroad: "It's been 67 years without self-criticism and change. The Castro family and their loyalists are getting rich by stealing."
Amor picked up the gauntlet and went further, extending his critique to the entire set of measures that the Central Committee of the Communist Party endorsed in an extraordinary session on June 17 and 18, 2026, and which the National Assembly ratified the following day.
"The famous 176 transformations are clearly seen to be just like the Tarea Ordenamiento, measures that lead nowhere," stated the economist, drawing a direct parallel with the program launched on January 1, 2021, which promised to unify the currency and stabilize prices but resulted in an estimated inflation of 739.6% in that same year.
The comparison is not insignificant. The Cuban government itself acknowledged in December 2023 that the Tarea Ordenamiento did not achieve its objectives. For Amor, history repeats itself: "No matter how much they claimed they were organizing, they were organizing nothing; what they were doing was destroying the economy."
The new Housing Law 187, published in the Official Gazette on October 14, 2026, and set to come into effect on October 21, serves as the immediate backdrop for this conversation. The regulation allows ownership of up to two properties (in cities); introduces housing cooperatives, eliminates the confiscation of properties due to emigration, and permits operations for foreigners.
However, Amor describes it as "another missed opportunity to reform the housing sector," noting that it maintains excessive state control, does not amend the 2019 Constitution to enable mortgages, and excludes both private banking and direct foreign investment.
The economist's diagnosis is set against a backdrop of extreme macroeconomic severity. The National Office of Statistics and Information reported that year-on-year inflation in Cuba reached 28.5% in September 2026, and Amor predicts that it will close the year between 35% and 40%, a rate he describes as "absolutely unsustainable."
In previous analyses, the economist had already warned that the Cuban reforms function more as a negotiation tool with the United States than as a genuine economic transition, and that only 21% of the Guidelines approved at the VI Congress of the Communist Party in 2011 had been implemented by 2018.
The pattern, according to Amor, is always the same: announcements of change without real liberalization, with the State maintaining control over every mechanism, while the Cuban people bear the consequences. "The Cuban people will pay for it dearly," concluded the economist.
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