gcli fails to cross build from source, because it builds for the build
architecture. The most common way to communicate the host architecture
to configure is passing a --host flag. This configure however does not
understand that flag. Instead, it expects cross tools to be exported via
the environment. The easiest way of doing so is using dpkg's
buildtools.mk. Once doing so, gcli cross builds successfully. I'm
attaching a patch for your convenience.

Helmut