I understood the point. You might have missed mine. US Customs will not lower the tariff for open box products.
Are you seeing sellers labeling open-box drones as defective as a way of avoiding tariffs?
People should read the full story, not drone-focused excerpts from DroneXL. It's less about drones than how Olympic teams surveil each other and how this person was made the face of the scandal.
For customs valuation, tariffs apply to used equipment the same way they apply to new equipment. The key factors are the country of origin, the item's value, and how you are bringing it into the country.