And this is why "hard Brexit" is such a risky endeavor for the UK.
The EU is much larger and more experienced in trade deals. From day one Britain will be negotiating from a position of weakness. Once negotiations begin, Britain has a hard 2-year deadline... And to make it worse, they don't have people with experience in bilateral trade agreements because the EU has been in charge of those for 40 years.
The British press is trying to spin this inherently weak position into a matter of EU countries looking to punish Britain, or other such nonsense.
