If it means something, I've occasionally seen orders from AliExpress (where you'd expect the goods to be 99% Chinese-made) where the customs declarations/shipping label lists an even lower GDP country as the nominal return address. I wonder if they literally route around the higher CN -> US shipping by doing, say China -> Tajikstan -> US?
I'm finding the shipping times are less terrible than they used to be-- often 2-3 weeks, with surprisingly good tracking. (The big black hole seems to be when the package arrives in Compton, and then usually spends a few days before being handed over to the USPS; I imagine they crack open a shipping container and re-wrap everyone's purchases for the last 1000km through a domestic carrier.
It's interesting that nobody's ever proposed a big fat USPS subsidy for domestic mail as a way to make American business more competitive. There are plenty of items (anything in the "small, unbranded, low-performance-needed hardware/accessories/toys" category) where the options are often "$2 + free shipping from Shenzhen in 2-3 weeks" or "$2 + $4.50 shipping in 3-4 days for a comparable item sold by a guy in Tacoma". I might be willing to pay $1 more for the convenience of having it sooner, but much more than that and I'll just compensate for slow delivery times by always having a project or two in the pipeline.
