But you pay the same tax on domestic goods, it's just included in the price you see.

I know that you obviously know this, so it's a weird thing to mention in context of (additional) taxing of foreign goods.

Yes but when you import from countries that don't have VAT is different than countries that have VAT. When you import something from the UK (have vat) what you pay is much closer to the list price of the item than the US.