To be fair contactless payments are just as fast in the US. Its just the chip that is slow here.
Caveat that perceptually this seems like a lot longer due to the variable action flow (sometimes sign, sometimes take card immediately, sometimes error) that demands attention.
Note here[0] that Chase states that only contactless MSD support (contactless magstripe emulation over NFC with a dynamically-generated security code) is required for Apple Pay; a subset of contactless EMV.
[0] https://www.chasepaymentech.com/developercenter/applepaymode...