That's the way the import and customs laws work. Businesses have to put the correct value of the shipment on the customs forms, or they could be fined heavily. Or, the customer could be fined. And, it does cost them more to ship overseas, and as the customer pays the cost of shipping, overseas customers have to pay the extra costs of overseas shipping.
Yeah, you can have stuff sent to a friend who will then repackage and send to you w/o customs forms, etc. But, if the package goes missing, then you are out of luck!