I remember for a while .cl domains were even free, but then there was too much demand and he government of that country made them paid again, even more expensive than .com IIRC
Even if it's not the best registrar (euphemism), GoDaddy makes some nice coupon campaigns which allow you to register a .COM as low as $1.99 or less sometimes. It's way better than register a cheap country-code domain name.
Take a look at the latest posts of this thread --> http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/577802-godaddy-discount-codes.html