diff --git a/package/linux-tools/linux-tool-perf.mk.in b/package/linux-tools/linux-tool-perf.mk.in
index d67318571a..1e19ee7f1c 100644
--- a/package/linux-tools/linux-tool-perf.mk.in
+++ b/package/linux-tools/linux-tool-perf.mk.in
@@ -28,7 +28,6 @@ PERF_MAKE_FLAGS = \
 	NO_LIBPERL=1 \
 	NO_LIBPYTHON=1 \
 	NO_LIBBIONIC=1 \
-	NO_LIBTRACEEVENT=1 \
 	NO_SHELLCHECK=1
 
 # We need to pass an argument to ld for setting the emulation when
@@ -128,6 +127,12 @@ PERF_MAKE_FLAGS += CORESIGHT=1
 # bare "ifdef CORESIGHT" constructs.
 endif
 
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBTRACEEVENT),y)
+PERF_DEPENDENCIES += libtraceevent
+else
+PERF_MAKE_FLAGS += NO_LIBTRACEEVENT=1
+endif
+
 # We really do not want to build the perf documentation, because it
 # has stringent requirement on the documentation generation tools,
 # like xmlto and asciidoc), which may be lagging behind on some