Fourth attempt at the following. Unreviewed, this was originally reviewed in http://codereview.c...

base/base.gyp

 # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
 # Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
 # found in the LICENSE file.
 
 {
   'variables': {
     'chromium_code': 1,
   },
   'includes': [
     '../build/win_precompile.gypi',
@@ skipping 48 matching lines @@
         'i18n/time_formatting.cc',
         'i18n/time_formatting.h',
       ],
     },
     {
       # This is the subset of files from base that should not be used with a
       # dynamic library. Note that this library cannot depend on base because
       # base depends on base_static.
       'target_name': 'base_static',
       'type': 'static_library',
+      'toolsets': ['host', 'target'],
       'sources': [
         'base_switches.cc',
         'base_switches.h',
         'win/pe_image.cc',
         'win/pe_image.h',
       ],
       'include_dirs': [
         '..',
       ],
     },
@@ skipping 330 matching lines @@
           'msvs_settings': {
             'VCLinkerTool': {
               'SubSystem': '2',         # Set /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS
             },
           },
         },
       ],
     }],
   ],
 }