A little bit of context. In LatAm the usual way to get anything tech related is that unless it's a mass market product, you have to get it from the US and forward it from Miami because dealers just don't come here and if there's a local dealer they only have the shittiest version of anything in stock and at 300% the price. Mexico and Brazil are exceptions sometimes, but for central america we are usually limited to what we can forward from the US.
I bought a Hakko FX-951 last year from tequipment. 0 issues, no complications. I wanted to get a little bit more into repair and having the capability to do micro soldering so I decided to search for the compatible micro soldering pencil + tips, went to tequipment again aaaaand
Oh noI was also going to buy more equipment as I'm building my personal lab bench but then...
Changes in export regulations have been a PITA in the past years - last time I got denied an Xiao ESP32-S3 Sense and a ESP32-H2 devkit at digikey with a similar BS export control restriction (circumvent them by buying at seeed studio bazar so kind of pointless).
Can I still get some of these stuff from other international dealers? Maybe, but the DHL/Fedex charges get somewhat ridiculous. To get the $300 awg you end up paying the $300 in export cost. I also prefer when I can buy my stuff from a reputable dealer like tequipment instead of having to rely on other sources. Best bet to get this stuff at a comfortable price is buying from some shady ebay/amazon seller and praying they don't squint.
Also something that bothers me is that,
Siglent and Rigol are Chinese isn't it kind of pointless to export control something that's already produced in a country allied with the countries you are trying to screw over?
My country is not even sanctioned ffs, and we are supposed to be a submissive backyard partner.
At least B&K is not an issue, currently asking for other brands to see what my options are.