does import cds sound better

They are bling.
Anything which costs more, and is rarer is ipso facto better to some people.
But no, just because it is an iport does not make it better.
Some stuff is better from other places.. The Japanese usually have better LPs because they try harder to make them perfect. Ditto the Germans.
Then from Mexico not so much... Ditto Taiwan.

Don't know if import Redbook from the EU sounds better, but often there are some extra tracks added. In the case of Rock/Pop CDs they are still going to suffer from high compression (the Loudness Wars). The EU or British Rock releases I've purchased were over-compressed just like US releases, but some artists like Trent Rezner are producing lower compressed, more dynamic recordings.

CDs pressed in Japan are much higher quality than the US. Plus, the Japanese offer SHM-CD (Super High Material CD), which I'm told is vastly superior to SACD, but at 3X the price.
Classical Redbook from the EU always sounds better due to the high standards of those record labels.

some of them do. i like german and uk ones over us. depending on their collectability value they may or maynot worth the money spent as per perhaps domestic cds.
i didn't like quality of bmg or columbia house domestic cds at all. they were far inferior to original and import releases.

I think the answer is "sometimes".

The SHM discs ARE superior to SACD, vastly superior? I guess it depends on how you view it but it is certainly not difficult to hear the improvement, more relaxed, greater separation, better soundstage and overall it sounds more natural. They are quite expensive and if there is a disc that you love using this technology it may or may not be worth it to you. Figure 45.00 and up.