do not forget that US prices are quoted without sales tax, whereas most americans will pay sales tax on it adding 6-10%

I know, the base model costs €1299 in Belgium, that’s $1400 with the current exchange rate, quite a bit more than $1099 + sales tax.

Isn’t that because of VAT?

VAT us a big part of it, another is currency exchange rate. Apple tends to use "1$ = 1EUR" for price conversion (to eliminate financial risk for themselves from fluctuating exchange rates), and then adds VAT on top of it.