Now the claim makes sense, in a deceptive-spin sort of way.
Trans-national comparisons are meaningless unless you control for (or break out separately) minority populations. Japan, Scandinavian countries, etc. have largely homogeneous populations. Compare Caucasian (non-Hispanic) Americans of northern European descent to Scandinavian populations, Japanese Americans to Japan as a whole (where I understand that non-Japanese represent less than 2% of the population). There are lies, damned lies and misused statistics.