Forcing static-linking on a port?

[Darren Pilgrim]

I need to make use of a port during start up, but it has library
dependencies that aren't available, before the complete library path is
established.  I've tried the following:

NO_SHARED=true (added to /etc/make.conf)
make -DNO_SHARED
make LDFLAGS+=-static

Every time, running file on the compiled program tells me that the binary is
dynamically-linked.  I couldn't find anything else in any man pages, Mk
files, mailing lists, Google, etc.  Sorry for the semi-inappropriate list
choice, but this one would get swallowed up on -questions.