Our scholars have had a lot of fun distorting Hadith to suit their backwards and regressive ways. Here’s my interpretation of the Hadith - they refer to a very specific time in history and likely refer to making a point about not performing idol worship. Merely constructing statues does not lead to idol worship, that’s just stupid logic. It requires a conscious decision to worship them and no Muslim is going to just start worshipping a Buddha statue just because the statue exists.
On the other hand, destruction of statues potentially violates a very central tenet of Islam - that of allowing non-Muslims to practice their faith freely. There are many faiths in which statues play an important role, so destruction of such statues would be the equivalent of violating Islam’s commandments of allowing everyone to practice their faith freely, not to mention a huge insult to those faiths.