Matt,
Here is Christian's reply translated. It was good that I waited for my wife to look at it, because I made a small mistake on one sentence.
"Hello Dan. I speak poor English. We have no distributor in the USA, however you can order direct from us at
info@turban-cnc.de. We need an export authorization. That can take 6-8 weeks. Unfortunately it can't go any quicker than that. Then we can send the press direct to you. Shipping and customs cost in the USA is about €100.00."
There are a couple of things that I am not clear of in his response, and I will mention them. He gives his email address for ordering direct. As he has a dedicated order page, I do not know if he placed a wrong address in for ordering, or if he is saying that you have to do it that way instead of the dedicated order page.
He mentions "customs cost". Both I and my wife translated that literally from his response. She is German and I am not, and she is involved in International Business concerning sales and shipping of goods internationally, and she is not certain of the scope of what "customs cost" is. I think that it could be what it costs him to get export authorization and and pay the agent for any of the associated services. My wife does not agree with me, but this is not my area of expertise. I also do not know if this would or would not include any duty or not that would be incurred upon entry at US Customs. Perhaps dickn52 can help us out on this, as this may be more in his area of expertise.
**edit* My wife now thinks that "customs cost" is **PROBABLY*" the fees on his end, but not duty, which would be paid by the receiving party when/if/after it enters the USA/US Customs.**
Also, as this was many years ago, I remembered from dickn52's respose, that theoretically you can be refunded for the cost of VAT paid on goods purchased in the EU, that leave the EU (while you are in the USA), if they are not subtracted from the cost in the EU. I remember that we were going to try this once, but did not carry this out to the end. Neither of us remember why now, but we think that it could have been that there was a minimun price requirement for filing, or the amount we would recoup from the typical $300.00 or so that we typically buy and bring home with us was not worth doing the work for. I have a link that describes what can be done, but it is general information, and as the saying goes, "the devil is in the details".
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2014/06/19/europe-shopping-vat-refund/10751983/
Hope this helps,
Danny