.configure && make fails to find ld [dlopen]

I am porting some software and it's getting tripped up with dlopen.

I run autoreconf -fi and it asks me to add AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS([m4]) to my
configure.ac file, which I do. It creates a ./m4 directory and proceeds.

After running .configure --prefix=/tmp [for testing] that' also goes fine,
except .configure cannot find dlopen
checking for dlopen in -ldl... no

make also fails when it comes time to link because of the dlopen although
it's a part of FreeBSD libc

manually running ld -ld I get this output: https://pastebin.com/Rzfajnk0

The relevant parts of my env looks like this: https://pastebin.com/uJJ7BqDg

Is there anything that I am missing why configure can't find ld?

Best,
Owen